Cardinal Wolsey's Angels come to Ipswich

Thomas Wolsey was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, around 1475. His father, who is thought to have been a butcher, provided a good education and he went on to Magdalen College, Oxford. Wolsey was ordained in around 1498. He became chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury and later chaplain to Henry VII, who employed him on diplomatic missions.

Wolsey was a cardinal and statesman, Henry VIII's lord chancellor and one of the last churchmen to play a dominant role in English political life.

Wolsey made a name for himself as an efficient administrator, both for the Crown and the church. When Henry VIII became king in 1509, Wolsey's rapid rise began. In 1514, he was created archbishop of York and a year later the pope made him a cardinal. Soon afterwards the king appointed him lord chancellor. Wolsey used his great wealth to indulge his passion for building - at his London home, York Place in Whitehall, and at Hampton Court, 20 miles south west of London. He also founded Cardinal College at Oxford (later King's College, and now Christ Church), but his haughtiness and grand style of living made him increasingly unpopular.

In 1524, he commissioned the Florentine sculptor Benedetto da Rovezzano to create four bronze angels for his magnificent Renaissance tomb, but as we know, fate intervened and Wolsey fell from favour. When Wolsey died in 1530, his possessions were appropriated by Henry for his own use, angels and unfinished tomb included. 

Henry didn't live to see the tomb finished, though he outlived Wolsey by 17 years. Construction was halted despite Benedetto establishing a team of craftsmen in Westminster, and the plans of Henry's three children to complete the memorial posthumously went unrealised. 

After Henry's death, details of whether the angels remained with the tomb become scant. Elizabeth I moved much of the tomb to Windsor in 1565, where it stayed for over 80 years, with some parts sold off during the civil war to help finance the Royalist cause. After the civil war, the only element of the tomb known to have survived was a black stone chest, finally put to use as the centrepiece of Horatio Nelson's tomb at St Paul's Cathedral. 

As for Wolsey's angels, their location, if they had survived at all, was unknown. In 1994, an unillustrated entry in a Sotheby's catalogue listed two bronze sculptures 'in Italian Renaissance style'. 

A Parisian art dealer bought the statues, and soon afterwards the Italian scholar Francesco Caglioti attributed the angels to Benedetto. In 2008, the second pair was discovered at Harrowden Hall, a country house in Northamptonshire owned by the Wellingborough Golf Club. The Sotheby's angels, it emerged, had been stolen from Harrowden in 1988. 

So, when Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich were loaned the four Angels by the V&A, I just had to see them. 

Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich

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Great medieval churches - Woolpit

The church of The Blessed Virgin Mary in Woolpit is one of the great medieval churches of Suffolk, a county blessed with some of the finest country churches in England. Like so many other Suffolk villages Woolpit owes its superb church to the wealth of the medieval wool trade, but there was a church on this spot centuries before Suffolk wool merchants gained their wealth.

Woolpit became a destination for pilgrims during the medieval period, when it held a richly decorated statue of Our Lady in its own chapel. No trace of this chapel now survives but it was probably on the north side of the chancel, where the vestry now stands. Alternatively, it may have stood at the east end of the south aisle. Pilgrims began arriving at least as early as 1211 when the Bishop of Norwich ordered that their offerings be given to St Edmundsbury Abbey.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit became extremely popular during the 15th and 16th centuries. Henry VI visited twice, and Queen Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII, ordered that a pilgrimage be made on her behalf in 1501.

How old is it? 

Victorian tower apart, this is a medieval building and the original church went back even further to before the Norman Conquest. The chapel and statue of Our Lady of Woolpit was popular with pilgrims in medieval times, which accounts for the expensive detail, and records go back to 1211 when the church was still in the hands of the St Edmundsbury Abbey. The present nave and chancel date back to the 14th century; the pews and chancel screen 15th century, although considerable renovation took place to the screen in 19th century. 

The magnificent tower / spire of St Mary`s in Woolpit

St Mary's is worth visiting for its superb double-hammer beam roof, decorated with carved figures of angels.

Iconoclast William Dowsing did his best to destroy the angels in 1644. His deputy found 80 'superstitious Pictures' some of which he destroyed and others he ordered to be taken down. Many of the angel's heads were defaced but these were sensitively restored in the 19th century.

Other highlights include beautifully carved medieval bench ends decorated with a wide variety of carved figures. These figures probably survived because the Puritans considered them heraldic symbols rather than religious. Eye-catching figures include griffins and a very mournful looking dog.

Another highlight is a finely crafted south porch dating to 1430-1455. Over the porch arch is a parvise, a small chamber possibly used for storing important documents. The porch roof is vaulted with exceptionally detailed lierne vaulting and decorated bosses.

The eagle lectern is a rare early Tudor relic, made around 1520 and one of just 20 surviving examples made to accept a chained Bible. A local tradition suggests that Elizabeth I gave the lectern to the church, though there is no proof of this. The queen did visit nearby Haughley Park in 1600 and sent one of her knights to visit Woolpit on her behalf. It is certainly possible that he gave the parishioners money that was used to buy the lectern.

The screen is 15th century, though the gates are Jacobean. The screen is painted and gilded, and retains the medieval beam made to hold the rood, or crucifix. The base of the screen is painted with figures of saints including St Withburga, St Edmund, St Etheldreda, and St Felix. The face of St Felix is actually a portrait of Henry Page, the serving rector at the time of the Victorian restoration. 

Over the arch is a beautifully vaulted painted dedication board, decorated with figures of angels.

Each end of the chancel choir stalls has a bench end with an intricate figure of a Green Man. Set against the wall is a fascinating carving of a woodwose, a wild man of the woods figure found throughout East Anglia.

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