First of all, I must apologise for the sorry mess I made of my blog entry for yesterday. I don't know how I managed to duplicate all those photographs. It had been a lovely day, but at the end of it I was too tired to try and correct the mess, so I published it as it was and went to bed. Now I'm going to try and straighten things out by showing the same pictures and commenting on them. Should explain that we took the A14 back from Cambridgeshire into Suffolk, turned off at Bury St. Edmund's, then took what Ann calls 'the pretty way' home. Even then we decided to take a turn off the back road that we weren't too sure about, and eventually found ourselves in the Cockfield/ Thorpe Morieux area.
The house above is a Thatched farmhouse. It's worth enlarging to have a good look at the thatching detail along the roof ridge. It's a house that has been well looked after over the centuries.
Above is a house that has steadily come down hill over the centuries. Built as a 'hall dwelling' in the 1300/1400s. Probably with a central hearth fireplace originally, it was prosperous enough to have a solid Tudor chimney installed in the 1500s. At some stage, probably in the 1700/1800s it has been converted into a row of labourers' cottages, and in the first half of the 1900s has suffered the final indignity of having its peg tiled, or possibly thatched, roof removed and given a corrugated iron roof instead. However, someone is now spending a fair amount of money on restoring the building into a home. I hope its story has a happy ending- No! not an ending- a good continuation.
Cockfield Church, with a lovely building to the right and a possibly even better one to the left (see next photo but one).
A closer look at Cockfield Church, to which we must return for a better look round. Ann says we have been over it in the past (I think she's right), but it looks well worth a second visit.
You can see why we enjoy living in Suffolk. We usually find that almost any lane or back road is worth exploring.
8 comments:
St Peter's at Cockfield is a marvelous old church, I understand the list of rectors dates back to 1190 and although the earliest part of the building is the North aisle dating from the C.14th it does contain earlier features like the C.12th Aumbry (what is the difference between an aumbry and an almery Mike? - both are ecclesiastical cabinets)
Hi Crowbard. No difference, same word, or at least -same root. Chambers 20th Century Dictionary gives :- Ambry, aumbry, almery, Scottish -awmry, awmrie- a recess for church vessels, a cupboard, a pantry, a dresser, a safe, and given the root - arma, arms, tools, Armoury is much the same word, too.
Lovely atmospheric photos.
Thank you Pat. I know how dramatically beautiful you area is; but Suffolk does have its good points.
Thank you Pat. I know how dramatically beautiful you area is; but Suffolk does have its good points.
Thanks Mike, I can see the connexion, I was wondering if an almery was possibly for the collection, storage and disbursement of alms - or perhaps alms got heir name from the cupboards in which they were kept? Or perhaps the cupboards were so named for their keepers, the almoners and the associated idea of alimony?
I think that for some of the variations of aumbry/almery listed above, the words alms and arms may well have got a little mixed up. As Mr. Weller remarked to the judge in Pickwick Papers when asked how he spelled his name, "That depends on the taste and fancy of the speller, my lord". And, of course, that is true of most words, and names,in the past.
Language has come a long way from "Ugh!" - but "Ugh" still has its applications.
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