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St Andrew, Helions Bumpstead

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Here we are among the pretty little villages of north Essex, amid the high-hedged rolling lanes, the copses, the dips and rises. The villages themselves have their pargeted cottages, their thatched roofs, their grand Georgian statement houses and the terraced cottages of the poor. They have their greens, and their old-fashioned road signs which have generally been replaced elsewhere. North Essex is what outsiders think Suffolk is like, and perhaps it is more like Suffolk is than Suffolk itself. The three counties of Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire meet less than a mile from Helions Bumpstead, and this little church would surely be an adornment to any of them. It sits on its hillside above the village street, its little red brick tower rising pleasingly above the greenery of the adjacent houses. And even as you approach you can see that this is going to be a quirky church, for all along the south aisle the window tracery has been replaced with oddly domestic wooden framing. This is a sign of what we will find inside, for in fact this little church has benefited from restorations and repairs at quietly unenthusiastic times which have given it a delicious character quite unlike any other Essex church - indeed, unlike any other church I know. The long 18th Century had left St Andrew in a bit of a state, and so in 1812 they replaced the tower with the current one in red brick, and by 1832 they had rebuilt the south aisle, again mostly in brick. Restorations at these pre-ecclesiological times are not always happy ones, but here the feeling is of an entirely rustic and organic building at one with its setting. And so, you step inside. The immediate impression is of old stone and cream-painted wood. The almost complete lack of coloured glass fills the building with light. What happened here? Well, by the early 20th Century this church had been more or less abandoned, and was derelict. It was restored in the 1930s by Charles Canning Winmill, a stubbornly decorative artist stuck in the old Arts and Crafts ways. He reused the wood from the west gallery and box pews to refurnish the church, along with 15th Century panels which had somehow survived the depredations of the years. It is remarkably successful, and gives the church the special atmosphere we find in it today. Winmill was careful to preserve the best of the past, and if there is a sense in which these features feel curated it is also true that everything gets its chance to shine without muscling in. Most striking perhaps is the pink-painted early 17th Century memorial to the memorably named Devereux Tallakarne, but quirkier and more memorable still is a painted wooden board that remembers Mr William Tabersham, whose birth and residence was in this parish till the 12 of May 1771 and then DIED Aged 85 Years. The inscription continues: In so long period, no doubt but you may find, To some misconduct he might be inclin'd But let's not censure any, while we are Subject ourselves to fall into the snare And if a fault we've seen the same let's shun, And mend his steps before our race is run. Simon Knott, May 2020 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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home - index - latest - e-mail
links - small print - about this site
Norfolk churches - Suffolk churches
www.simonknott.co.uk