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St Mary, Lindsell

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This lovely little church takes a bit of finding, for although it is near the centre of its small village it is tucked away behind houses down a narrow track and you might easily miss it if you are just cycling through. It sits behind a barred gate in its narrow and pleasingly tree-bowered churchyard, an attractive if slightly curious sight for the church is constructed of rubble with red brick dressings. Also odd is the position of the tower, for this Norman church was augmented with an aisle and arcade in the 14th Century, and then at the start of the 16th Century the narrow tower was placed at the west end of the aisle, which is to say that it is set in one corner, and you enter the church beside it. You step into the aisle past the elegant 15th Century font and then into the nave beyond, the two together wide and full of light thanks to relatively little coloured glass. The view east is impressive, a rounded chancel arch and then a smaller opening between the arch and the arcade to allow a view of the high altar from the aisle. The best of the glass is in the chancel, a collection of examples from the 13th to the 16th Century, brought together in 1929 and set here by AK Nicholson, no less. The two oldest figures are near the top, rather unclear now but both are saints, one of them holding a book. The 16th Century figures of a Bishop giving a blessing and the Blessed Virgin and child are lovely, but the donor figures are perhaps the most interesting because two of them are Thomas and Agnes Fytche. Thomas died in 1514, and what makes them unusual is that Thomas and Agnes are also represented in brass on their memorial in the chancel floor. I can't think of anywhere else in Essex or East Anglia where this is the case. A little arched hatch on the north side of the chancel was uncovered in 1926 when workers digging a drainage ditch uncovered the remains of an anchorite's cell on the other side of the wall. It would have given the resident anchorite a view of the altar during Mass, although it seems likely there would have been at least one other opening on the outside of the church to allow for the passing in of food and the passing out of ablutions, as well as the advice that anchorites were often asked to give by parishioners and visitors.. Simon Knott, December 2021 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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home - index - latest - e-mail
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Norfolk churches - Suffolk churches
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