Friday 5 May 2017

Friday.


On Thursday we motored over to a small  village a few miles away   to look at a 'Banjo' barometer which needed work - so much so that the visit turned out to be somewhere between a complete washout and a dead loss. However we  made a detour on the  way home (as is our wont - in this case  won't go straight home) and  went to look  at a village church in Little  Waldingfield. This  is  one of those strange places - common enough in Suffolk- where Little waldingfield is now a much larger village than Great Waldingfield.    I  should  perhaps explain that the top picture is of three early buildings which appear to constitute a small, early, industrial estate. The one to  the right of  centre obviously having  started out as a  roadside forge.




The next three pictures are of Little Waldingfield Church, and its contents. The Church is a beautifully proportioned, mainly 14th/15th century (?) building.  The font is probably of  much the same date, and although the figures on it have been ( literally) defaced during the Civil War, the font can quite clearly be seen to have been a lovely piece of work in its day. The oak chest in the fourth  picture is a very fine piece of work, also dating from the 14th/15th  century, and English. 

I know I've said this, or something  like it, a good many times before, but I'm still amazed at the number of village churches we have in East Anglia,  all  of them  with a good number of  interesting,  or indeed fascinating, contents.

Good Night All.

4 comments:

Crowbard said...

Thanks Mike,
I've added the photos of the font and coffer to my Pinterest boards:-

https://uk.pinterest.com/carlpjhorner/ecclesiastical-artifacts/

https://uk.pinterest.com/carlpjhorner/early-vintage-furniture/

Mike said...

Crowbard- aught to warn you that Little Waldingfield Church is one of those churches that doesn't label the contents, so any dates I've given are all me own opinion. Not sure that this isn't an improvement on some of our churches, where the contents are treated more like that of a provincial museum.

Crowbard said...

I think if I were forced to wager on such dates I'd back your opinions against any Prince of the Church's pronouncements ~ even if he had access to the original documentation.

Mike said...

Thank you Crowbard.