THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE

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St Mary, Great Henny

Click on the 'play' symbol in the second image to see all my photographs of this church as a slide show, then click on any image in the slideshow to see it large in a new page. Alternatively, if you don't have flash enabled, you can go straight to the set for this church on flickr. The early sun was shining in a clear blue sky when I left Ipswich, but by the time I reached Sudbury there was, as predicted, a wintry shower. I waited for the worst of it to pass, and then set off through Ballingdon over the border into Essex and to Middleton (already visited), climbing ever higher on narrower, windier and hillier lanes, up through Henny Street and then on towards Great Henny. This is hilly country, and Great Henny church crowns the highest of them, above the village and away from the houses as if it were a castle. The rain began again as I passed through Henny Street, and as I turned into the wind a mile or so short of my destination it worsened. As I reached the bottom of the track which leads up to the top of the hill, I looked down at my waterproof top and saw white flakes accumulating - snow! It didn't last however, and by the time I reached the sanctuary of the top it had stopped. I parked my bike in the porch of the church. Open. It has a rather forbidding appearance, a long hall of a church and the tower surmounted by a tall 18th century spire, but I needn't have worried. This is a really friendly, welcoming church. It is part of the 'pilgrim places' network, a nationwide organisation of churches and other buildings which promise to welcome pilgrims and travellers. This church is always open, guarded by a row of cottages on the side of the churchyard. Inside, all is 19th Century, though pleasantly so. As I started looking around the sun came out, so I went outside to do the exterior. The odd structure on the edge of the churchyard is a dummy spire designed to encourage woodpeckers to attack it and not the church spire! A curiosity of this area is that all the churches are anglo-Catholic in character to some degree, and several have glass by the Birmingham-based Hardman workshop, who ordinarily supplied catholic churches and are relatively uncommon in Anglican churches. This seems too much of a coincidence not to be significant. I liked this church a lot, despite the alarming marble font and not having terribly much of interest other than a few rescued brasses pinned to the wall. As part of their 'pilgrim place' status, they sell packets of lupin and honesty to scatter as you go about your pilgrimage. Not sure what the Essex Trust for Nature Conservation would make of that, but I bought some anyway. Simon Knott, October 2012

 

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home - index - latest - e-mail
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Norfolk churches - Suffolk churches
www.simonknott.co.uk