Thursday 6 October 2022

St Mary's Church Wetherden

 This is a church I ought to know well but don't.

I was Christened here and went to primary school just across the road and in my early teens we used to take a short cut through the church yard went we went to' hang about' on the common. 

But I went to the Baptist Church up the road  not the C of E church and even though the school was a church aided school we only went there for nativity plays and I've only been in a few times since the 1960s.

Very smart new gates erected just recently to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee


It's a good sized church

with some lovely stained glass windows


The most interesting things in this typical village church are the carved bench ends. Some date from Medieval times and others are more recent copies






View down the nave, showing the South Aisle added later

The font that must have been used to baptise me in 1955 at the same time as a neighbours son, has a good wooden carved cover.


The Sulyard family were church benefactors over several centuries and John Sulyard gave money for a new south aisle in the C15. John was Chief Justice to Richard II so a rich and important man. This memorial is for Edward Sulyard who died in 1799



Some old box pews remain in one corner of the south aisle






Not many small village churches have a candle stand for lighting a candle and offering a prayer.


A bequest of 40 shillings was left for the building of the tower in 1420 and another in 1433 for a new bell.



On the Suffolk Churches website there's some interesting information about William Dowsing, who in arrived in Wetherden in 1644 on his tour of  the country to remove features of ritualistic worship.


The hammerbeam roof attracted the attention of parliamentary commissioner and iconoclast William Dowsing, who came this way on Monday February 5th, 1644, looking for evidence of ritualist worship. His role, which was largely self-appointed, was to strip the churches of the apparatus installed under the Laudian regime of the 1630s, as well as of surviving features that had been missed by the iconoclasts during the Reformation of a century earlier. Most parishes took this task on for themselves, but some didn't. Dowsing was particularly wary of parishes that had 'scandalous ministers' - that is to say, theological liberals - as rectors. That late winter Monday was a particularly busy day for Dowsing. Like all good puritans he rested on the Sabbath, but he had planned a preliminary tour of Cambridgeshire for the following week. Trevor Cooper, the editor of the new edition of the Dowsing Journals, suggests that on this, the final day of his initial Suffolk tour, he may have carried with him some inkling of the enormity of his task.

Dowsing had set off from Needham Market that morning, travelling over the fields to Badley (an identical journey can be made today) and then on into Stowmarket. It must have been about lunchtime that he arrived in Wetherden, having bypassed Haughley. He probably knew that there would be much to do here, for the Sulyards of Haughley Park were recusants, and their influence was a strong and obstructive one. He planned to deal with Elmswell and Tostock later in the afternoon, before arriving in Bury, where he would spend the night. Even so, with the help of some very sympathetic churchwardens, he was also able to survey the two huge Bury churches of St Mary and St James before the day was out. In all, he would deal with eight churches this day. His tour that Monday involved a journey of some twenty miles. This is good going, on a February day when the light fades early, on horseback in the days before proper roads. In his journal, he records his activities at Wetherden: We brake 100 superstitious pictures in Sr Edward Silliard's eile; and gave order to break down 60 more; and to take down 68 cherubims; and to levell the steps in the chancell; there was takeing up 19 superstitious inscriptions, that weighed 65 pounds.

So, in the space of an hour or so, St Mary underwent a thorough restructuring. It is interesting to differentiate between the work that Dowsing carries out himself, and that which he delegates to deputies and churchwardens. The superstitious pictures were in stained glass, in the windows. Dowsing himself destroyed all of those in the aisle, but not sixty others - perhaps these were awkward to reach, or perhaps the churchwardens asked if they could leave them until it was possible to replace them with plain glass. He also ordered the taking down of cherubims - these were the angels on the roof hammer beams, the work of several days, and something he felt safe to delegate, along with the removal of the chancel steps installed by the Laudians a decade earlier.



I think it's amazing that there are records to tell us something that happened on a specific day nearly 400 years ago.


After visiting the church I popped up the road to the Village Hall where the history group had an exhibition. But 1921 was way before the time my family were in the area so I didn't stay long or take any photos of their research.


Back Soon
Sue

25 comments:

  1. What a lovely church, I like the wood carvings at the ends of the pews, and the stained glass windows. How awful that so many artistic touches and stained glass windows were deliberately destroyed those many years ago.

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    1. The reformation in the C16 had already destroyed many decorations in churches - this was the second lot of destruction - very sad

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  2. Your church visits--and beautiful pictures--are some of my favorite blog posts, Sue. The churches there are just amazing. I don't comment much, though I've been reading your blog since the Smallholding days. Thank you for the tour.
    --Elise

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    1. I'm glad you enjoy the church visits - I've learned so much over the last 4 years

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  3. An interesting church history Sue, but what a shame all that Medieval glass was broken. "Superstitious pictures" indeed. No wonder I just find fragments of broken Medieval glass reinstated when I visit churches here. Cherubim too. How the people must have mourned the beautiful church fittings they were so familiar with. What a narrow mindset those Puritans had. It still looks a beautiful church today, despite their ravages.

    Love the wooden carvings here and pleased to note some of those at least escaped the Puritan wrath. Love the little pony-headed Kelpie I assume it is.

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    1. The bench ends are quite special I think. Shame about the Puritans - the Robert Harris book I've just finished is about Puritan life after Royalty was put back on the throne

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  4. I love the carvings. And the windows. And I wish William Dowsing had not done so much damage. I'm a Nonconformist and used to the plainer style of many chapels - but I also appreciate that a Creator God gives gifts of art and crafts for people to make beautiful things, which can enhance a place of worship. Look at all those instructions in the, Old Testament about building the Tabernacle and the Temple!

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    1. I've learned so much about C of E churches. The Strict Baptist chapel in the village where I went was quite plain but had a bigger congregation back in the 60's

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  5. What lovely pews! Our local church removed all the pews , which for me is a shame - I see them as very much part of the history of the building
    Alison in Wales x

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    1. I'm torn about pews - some churches are more useful with chairs that can be moved so the church can serve different functions but these pews are much too interesting to be removed I think

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  6. I love pew ends and those are lovely! xx

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  7. What an interesting and beautiful church, I love the pew ends, and those new gates are lovely.

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    1. The gates look really splendid - they should last for many years

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  8. Enjoyed your tour of this church. You captured quite a bit of the back story for us all. Thank you.

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  9. Fascinating history. To think 400 years ago the decision was made to remove church rituals seems anti-religion. The church today is beautiful. The pew carvings are one-of-a-kind and show outstanding skill and craft. The font and the unusual cover is unique and lovely. You have some nice connection to this church.

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    1. The first desecration was done during the reformation and then along came the Puritans and destroyed even more

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  10. Lovely photos. It’s horrible to think of the art that Dowsing destroyed. You have written about Clare in Suffolk - I wish Dowsing had given that one a miss.

    I have Act of Oblivion out of the library and am looking forward to it.

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    1. I enjoyed Act of Oblivion more than I thought I would but he is such a good author so I shouldn't be surprised

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  11. What a beautiful church full of interesting details. I love stained glass especially when the light shines through. Catriona

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    1. It was lovely and sunny and caught the windows really well

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  12. That man must have been responsible for a lot of destruction in many churches. I suppose he was filled with righteous indignation, but today it seems a shame that so much is now lost.

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  13. Another beautiful church! How many have you visited in Suffolk so far? I think that maybe you should make a separate page for them.

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  14. I've question. Those pew carvings. Do they have a 'message', or are they stricktly ornamentation. There were some very interesting ones in the Chester Cathedral, that didn't seem to fit with the church setting. A cautionary message perhaps. That's all I could come up with. But some of these look like mythical beasts.

    It really is a shame that people felt so strongly about things that they would have destroyed the things in a church.

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