On Friday we motored up to Southwold to the Saint Felix School Antique Fair. Bought one item, a late Georgian brass snuff box, with a combination lock in the lid. Work though to put it back in good order. Lunch with friends, followed by business, before we set out for home. Took a different way home, as there were very delaying roadworks in Blythburgh. Came home via a village I don't remember having visited before - Uggleshall. If the original name was something like Uggle's Hall, makes me wonder who the original Uggle was? And if he deserved the rather horrible sounding name of Uggle; sounds like a big, hairy, ancient Brit, doesn't he? The photos are all of Uggleshall Church, which certainly don't live up (or down?) to the name, as it's rather a pretty church. It is being rethatched, and a lovely job is being made of the rethatching.
Suffolk, I'm glad to say, is still full of pleasant surprises.
Took this last one of Ann, who was delighted by this unexpected little Church.
Then back on the road and home via Blyford, Halesworth, Bramfield, and the A12.
5 comments:
I believe that is St Mary's Church of Uggeshall, the blocked North door still displays its Norman arch. It looks like brick-work Mike. Would that be reclaimed Roman Brick? The manor is mentioned at least 5 times in Domesday (Spelled differently each time) some spellings suggest the Hall may have first belonged to a Saxon called Wygge; hence Wygge's Hall. In 1086 Eskil the priest, a freeman, held from Earl Hugh Uggeshall Manor, 2 Carucates of land, 5 bordars and 1 slave, with 2 ploughs but the old mill had already fallen into disuse.
Godric is recorded as holding the same manor from Roger Bigod. Godwine also held it from St. Edmund. 2 freemen, Northmann & Ketil had 18 acres and half a plough in Uggeshall; Berengar, St Edmund's man appropriated their land and has the King's mercy.
Hello Crowbard. The doorway you mention is of brickwork, and appears to be Norman, which leaves us two possibilities: reused roman brick, or Norman brick of which I know one good example, i.e. Polstead Church, also in Suffolk (near here, in fact) which has a good deal of norman brick in its composition. I know this is against all received wisdom (that we lost brickmaking skills when the romans departed these shores around 450 A.D., and regained these skills around the late 1400s, in just pre Tudor days). I'm inclined to agree with you that Uggleshall Church Norman North doorway is of reused roman bricks, but it is just possible that at Uggleshall, as at Polstead, some knowledge of brickmaking had survived into Norman days.
P.s. Crowbard, please see next blog entry (Monday, 25th August). I remembered that I had taken a photo of the North doorway of Uggleshall church, and I think the photo might help, especially if enlarged.
I have never known a church with a thatched roof.
Hello Pat. There are quite a lot of them in Suffolk. Especially along the northern part of our coastal strip.
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