The Tudor connection - St Mary`s in Bury St Edmunds

St Mary's Church is the civic church of Bury St Edmunds and is one of the largest parish churches in England. It was part of the abbey complex and originally was one of three large churches in the town (the others being St James, now St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and St Margaret's, now gone).

The present church is the second building to stand on the site, the first being built in the 12th century by Mr Hervey. However, nothing survives of the Norman church and the oldest part of the existing building is the decorated chancel (c. 1290). There was a major renovation between the 14th and 16th centuries and it is at this point that the nave, its aisles and the tower were built

During the 16th century, John Notyngham and Jankyn Smyth, two wealthy local benefactors, died and left large amounts of money to the church. These funds contributed to building the north and south quire aisles, now the Lady Chapel and Suffolk Regimental chapel, two chantry chapels and a north and south porch. The south porch was removed during a restoration in 1830s, and St Wolstan's chapel was added on the north-west side. The interior has been updated with modern utilities since then as well.

My interest in visiting was primarily because of the church`s connection with Mary Tudor, Queen of France.

Looking toward the chancel and altar and showing the original chancel ceiling. St Mary`s claims to have the second longest aisle, and the largest West Window of any parish church in the country.

A picture taken nearer the back of the nave to give some idea of the massive proportions of this huge Parish Church and showing the (modern) east window. This is in the shape of a Star of David and has a scene of the legendary killing of St Edmund by the Danes. See below.

Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, was Henry VIII's favourite sister and it is thought he named his daughter Mary (the future Mary I) after her. 

Mary, born on March 18 1496 at Richmond Palace, was the youngest of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York’s children to survive infancy and was sister to Prince Arthur, Princess Margaret and Prince Henry (who became Henry VIII). She was known as one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. 

Originally betrothed to Charles of Castile and a wedding planned for 1514, the marriage was eventually cancelled due to diplomatic delays. 

To 18-year-old Mary’s horror, her brother the King’s replacement for her was King Louis XII of France, a man who at 52 was 34 years her senior. Their betrothal was part of a peace treaty with France, negotiated by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. 

Mary had been secretly in love with her brother’s friend Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, and having agreed to marry King Louis XII, she made her brother promise that should she outlive him, she could choose her next husband. She married King Louis XII on October 9 1514, but just a few months later he died. 

Charles Brandon was sent to France to bring Mary home and there, in secret, the couple married at the Hotel de Clugny on March 3 1515 without the King’s consent - an act of treason. 

The King was furious and the privy council called for Charles to be imprisoned or executed. It was only through the intervention of Thomas Wolsey and Henry’s love for his sister that the couple were eventually pardoned by Henry. But they were forced to pay a large fine. They officially later married on 13 May 1515 at Greenwich Palace in the presence of King Henry VIII. 

The Duke and Duchess of Suffolk went on to have four children: Henry (named after her brother), Frances, Eleanor, and Henry. Only Frances and Eleanor survived childhood. 

Mary was normally referred to at the English court as "the French Queen” and was not known as the Duchess of Suffolk in her lifetime, despite being legally allowed to be. 

Mary died, aged 37, at Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk, on 25 June 1533 having never fully recovered from the sweating sickness she caught in 1528. 

Her funeral was very grand. Her body lay in state at Westhorpe, with candles burning day and night. On 10th July, Henry VIII ordered a Requiem Mass to be held for his sister at Westminster Abbey. 

Mary was greatly loved by the people of Suffolk and after her funeral alms of meat, drink and money were given to the poor. But as was custom, neither Mary's brother Henry VIII or her husband attended the funeral. 

She was buried first at the Abbey of St Edmund on July 21 1533 but when the abbey was dissolved her remains were moved five years later in 1538 to St Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds. 

In 1784, her remains were disinterred when her altar monument was removed because it obstructed the approach to the rails of the communion table. She was reburied in the Sanctuary, where she rests today, and a pre-reformation altar stone with five consecration crosses, engraved ‘Mary Queen of France 1533’ was placed over the grave. 

Before this her coffin was opened, and locks of her hair were taken by Horace Walpole, the duchess of Portland, and several others. 

A locket containing a lock of Mary Tudor’s hair can be found on display at the town’s Moyse’s Hall Museum. 

When Edward VIII visited in 1904 he ordered that a marble kerb be placed around Mary’s gravestone. This was carried out by his host Lord Cadogan of Culford in 1907. A photograph of Edward VIII’s visit can be seen at the church. 

The two plaques on the wall above where Mary has her final resting place.

In 1881 Queen Victoria presented St Mary’s Church with a beautiful stained-glass window in memory of Mary Tudor which can be seen in the south chapel. In the window Mary Tudor, Henry VIII, Prince Charles of Castille, Louis XII of France, and Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, all feature to tell the story of Mary’s life and death. 

One of the claims to fame for this church is the west window (above).It is claimed to be the largest in a parish church in England. 

This (modern) east window is in the shape of a Star of David and has a scene of the legendary killing of St Edmund by the Danes.

The font, badly defaced by the Puritans.

Here we have a rare item - the Cadaver tomb of a John Baret

John Baret of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, died in 1467. A wealthy and well-connected merchant, he left what may well be the longest and most personally revealing will of 15th-century England. His cadaver tomb (erected by 1463) and chantry ceiling survive here. The design of John Baret’s tomb is unusual. In most surviving English sculpted cadaver monuments, an image of the deceased in life tops the tomb, and a carving of them as a corpse is placed below, usually within some form of cage structure. John Baret’s memorial inverts this pattern. His sculpted, full-sized cadaver occupies the top of the tomb, while the image of Baret in life is much smaller, carved only in low relief and positioned low down. Similarly, the tomb inscriptions stress Baret’s sinfulness and invite prayer for his soul, but without highlighting his worldly achievements or status. Baret’s tomb thus emphasises death, unworthiness and his status as a sinner.

In 2003 the whole monument was loaned to the Victoria and Albert museum but is now back in its original position. I have to admit here that until I visited this church, I had no idea these tombs existed! 

Painted by Rose Mead in 1899, this picture depicts the distribution of charity to the poor of the town. In 1639 Francis Pynner, a leading burgess, bequeathed 40 loaves of bread to be distributed on the last Friday of every month to 40 poor people who came to be catechized. (instruct (someone) in the principles of Christian religion by means of question and answer, typically by using a catechism.

This clock was made by George Graham (1673-1751), clockmaker of London. It was made about c.1751, and hung in the kitchen at Darsham Hall, Suffolk, until 1945. It then changed hands and ended up in the vestry of St Mary in 1977 and in 1988 moved to its current position.

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The shrinking village of Kettlebaston

Kettlebaston is a village and a civil parish with just over 30 inhabitants located around 3 miles (5 km) east of Lavenham. From the 2011 Census the population of the village was not maintained and is now included in the civil parish of Chelsworth.

Once in an area of great wealth, the demise of the mediaeval wool trade was indirectly the saving of the village, (as we know it today), since the locals were unable to afford the expense of upgrading their houses with the latest architectural fashions. The number of timber-framed houses slowly declined over the years, as did the population - from over 200 at its peak, to the point when the village was on the brink of extinction. By the 1960s, with the road no more than an unmade track, and no electricity or mains water supplies, (it still has no gas or main drains), Kettlebaston was barely standing. In the "Spotlight On The Suffolk Scene" article, of the Chronicle & Mercury in June 1949, it was noted that a great many houses were category five - derelict, and ready for demolition. However, it survived, albeit as avery small hamlet still. The existing few houses are beautifully maintained and there is a magnificent church as well.

The village sign, showing signs of its age.

The village sign, bearing two crossed sceptres topped with doves, was erected to mark the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. It also commemorates that, in 1445, Henry VI granted the manor of Kettlebaston to William de la Pole, 1st Marquess of Suffolk, in return for the service of carrying a golden sceptre at the coronation of all the future Kings of England, and an ivory sceptre to carry at the coronation of Margaret of Anjou, and all future Queens. This honour continued until Henry VIII resumed the manor, although it was later regranted it was without the royal service. The full story behind the sign is HERE.

This beautifully adorned cottage was the first house I saw as I entered the village

As the agricultural workers left the land in search of other jobs, due to the increased mechanisation of farm work, "outsiders" discovered the secluded beauty of the rural Suffolk countryside, and a new age dawned. The tiny workmen's cottages, which once housed huge families - and some stock and chickens according to local accounts - were lovingly renovated and converted, and the village was reborn, and went on to proudly win Babergh Best Kept Village, and runner up in the Suffolk Community Council Best Kept Village Competition, in 1989.

The current village has no shop, school, or pub. In the past it at least had a school!. A plaque on the old National School House beside the drive to the churchyard announces that it was erected in 1838. Its first stone was laid on a Monday in September by Lady Pocklington. Mrs. Beachcroft (the Lady of the Manor) gave £10, also a grant of land valued at £10 and an annual subscription from herself and her nephew (Mr. T. Beachcroft of Wiston Hall) of £2 towards this School.

The following is taken from that brilliant site "Suffolk Churches".

In 1963, in the thirty-third year of his incumbency as Rector of the parish of Kettlebaston, Father Harold Clear Butler sent a letter to a friend. "You are right,"he wrote. "There is no congregation any more." In failing health, he relied on the family of a vicar who had retired nearby to carry out the ceremonies of Easter week that year. In 1964, Father Butler himself retired, and an extraordinary episode in the history of the Anglo-Catholic movement in Suffolk came to an end.

There may have been no congregation, but St Mary at Kettlebaston was a shrine, to which people made pilgrimages from all over England. Here was the liturgically highest of all Suffolk's Anglican churches, where Father Butler said the Roman Mass every day, celebrated High Mass and Benediction on Sunday, dispensed with churchwardens, flouted the authority of the Anglican diocese by tearing down state notices put up in the porch, refused to keep registers, and even, as an extreme, ignored the office of the local Archdeacon of Sudbury. An entry from the otherwise empty registers for October 2nd 1933 reads Visitation of Archdeacon of Sudbury. Abortive. Archdeacon, finding no churchwardens present, rode off on his High Horse!

Father Butler came to this parish when the Anglo-Catholic movement was at its height, and survived into a poorly old age as it retreated, leaving him high and dry. But not for one moment did he ever compromise.

Kettlebaston church is not just remote liturgically. You set off from the vicinity of Hadleigh, finding your way to the back of beyond at Brent Eleigh - and then beyond the back of beyond, up the winding roads that climb into the hills above Preston. Somewhere here, two narrow lanes head north. One will take you to Thorpe Morieux, and one to Kettlebaston, but I can never be sure which is which, or even if they are always in the same place. Finding your way to this, one of the most remote of all Suffolk villages, can be like finding your way into Narnia. Once in the village, you find the church surrounded by a high yew hedge, through which a passage conducts a path into the graveyard. On a buttress, a statue of the Coronation of the Queen of Heaven sits behind a grill. It is a copy of an alabaster found under the floorboards during the 1860s restoration. The original is now in the British Museum.

One Anglo-catholic tradition that has not been lost here is that the church should always be open, always be welcoming. You enter through the small porch, perhaps not fully prepared for the wonders that await. The nave you step into is light, clean and well-cared for. There is no coloured glass, no heavy benches, no tiles. The brick floor and simple wooden chairs seem as one with the air, a perfect foil for the rugged late Norman font, and the rich view to the east, for the fixtures and fittings of the 20th Century Anglo-Catholic tradition survive here in all their splendour.

The font believed to be from about 1200

The church features one of Suffolk's finest modern rood screens, designed by Father Ernest Geldart and decorated by Patrick Osborne, and Enid Chadwick. The rood screen (also choir screen, chancel screen, or jube) is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or wrought iron. The rood screen would originally have been surmounted by a rood loft carrying the Great Rood, a sculptural representation of the Crucifixion, as below. 

Blessed Virgin

Sacred Heart of Jesus

The rare Sacred Heart altar upon a Stuart Holy Table. The `Sacred Heart` is is one of the most widely practiced and well-known Roman Catholic devotions.

Regarded as a place of pilgrimage to the followers of the Anglo-Catholic movement from all over the UK, Kettlebaston was the liturgically highest of all Suffolk's Anglican churches. From 1930, until his retirement in 1964, Reverend Father Harold Clear Butler said Roman Mass every day, and celebrated High Mass and Benediction on Sundays. He also removed state notices from the porch, and refused to keep registers, or to recognise the office of the local Archdeacon of Sudbury. Despite opposition, the church finally received electric heating and lighting in 2014.

A great church to visit and which took me by surprise when I first entered it. It is full of treasures and reminders of the past controversies surrounding the many, and varied, religious practices.

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A bright cold morning in Walton

The morning looked bright but felt cold, and there was a gentle breeze - an ideal morning for a stroll along the promenade at Walton on the Naze. Not many other people ventured out apparently, so we had it all to ourselves as we walked toward the Naze end.

The beach huts looked really colourful in the morning sun.

I rather took a fancy to this one.

Shuttered for the winter, awaiting warm weather.

Not so funny if the tide came in while you were having a doze!

The tide was coming in, but appeared gentle at this time.

Symmetry in the sand.

As the tide neared its peak, it began to assume a more vigorous nature.

By the time we were nearly back to our starting point, we had to watch the path ahead which was disappearing under the swell.

But eventually I was caught! Just as I was passing this point, a wave crashed over the wall and hit me! Thank goodness for a good coat, although my trousers suffered.

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and finally for 2019 ....

Well, the end of the year is almost upon us and we are all looking forward to the warmer weather. However, there are still things to photograph and keep us venturing out in the cold! Well wrapped up of course. On the 8th of December I captured this rainbow over the Layham Church as I was setting off on my morning walk. Of course this would be a morning I had no camera on me - how could you I thought. However the mobile phone came to the rescue so I was reasonable pleased with the result.

I have never seen a rainbow over the church before, and I have walked past it hundreds of times. Today was the right time and day - it lasted a very few minutes, and then was gone.

A chance call into East Bergholt church on my way home from Flatford on 11th gave me the opportunity to capture the window dedicated to John Constable. A one time resident of the village.

Lights of another sort as I captured (hand held) these wonderful christmas lights in Hintlesham village. Difficult to beat this one.

Meanwhile, in Christchurch Park in Ipswich, another Tawny Owl has replaced the previous resident star. This one will be a star the same judging by the number of images posted already on social media and in the local press. When I took this one, it looked to be pointing a talon at me!

Nearby in the park, one of the furry friends which inhabit the area in great numbers.

To finnish, a scene of late Autumn colours at the end of a lane that I walk regularly with a great blue sky behind. 

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And then it rained - and rained....

There have been numerous occasions in the last few months of torrential downpours and flooding in various parts of the uk. Most of these have been on the western and northern side of the UK, and have resulted in massive damage and horrendous experiences for huge numbers of people. The last few days we, on the eastern side, had some of the rain, but not on the scale (thank goodness) of the western side of the UK.

We live by the River Brett, and fortunately the ground slopes away from the river, on the opposite side so we don't have to worry too much! However, the local area had its fair share of water for several hours.

Looking toward Hadleigh, the small river Brett is in there somewhere! However, today it has disappeared.

The seat, normally overlooking the river, is now isolated amongst the flood waters. I don't  think I shall sit here for a few days.

The remains of the Conservation area.

The football pitch and toddlers slide.

The Granary house isolated for several hours by the rush of flood water. It's only a stream that passes to the left, but fed today by the torrent off the playing field etc.

View on the way into Hadleigh. Normally a grazing meadow for the horses, but today completely submerged.

The riverside walk - well normally it is!

Toppesfield Bridge having a struggle to let the river all through.

The road leading to the rugby / football area. Houses cut of completely. Thankfully, within 24 hours the worst of the road floods had subsided, although it will be several days before the fields drain I am sure.

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The `Ark` arrives in Ipswich

Having seen the news items and listened to the superlatives as people described it, I thought I must visit the half sized replica of Noah`s Ark which arrived in Ipswich. Although the brain behind the Ark said it was a non Christian floating museum, I fail to see how a 70 m long floating museum, full of bible stores, can be construed as anything else!.

The Ark was the brainchild of Dutchman,  Aad Peters who said the ship was an "emotional and cultural" experience for visitors, not religious.

From the stern end

It is certainly impressive as it sits in the Neptune dock, in Ipswich. It is around half-size to the Ark described in the Bible. As far as I know, the largest wooden vessel ever built (about the size of the Biblical Ark) was Wyoming, a wooden six-masted schooner built and completed in 1909 by the firm of Percy & Small in Bath, Maine. With a length of 450 ft (140 m) from jib-boom tip to spanker boom tip.

Because of her extreme length and wood construction, Wyoming tended to flex in heavy seas, which would cause the long planks to twist and buckle, thereby allowing sea water to intrude into the hold. Wyoming had to use pumps to keep her hold relatively free of water. In March 1924, she foundered in heavy seas and sank with the loss of all hands.

Now considering that the Wyoming had access to steel to keep the shape, I am not sure how Noah managed with no steel / iron etc - and just using this strange Gopher wood! 

How much wood? And here we run into a big problem: simply gathering enough wood to build the boat. When another notoriously large ship (that was purportedly only a fraction of the Ark's size), the Great Michael, was built in 1511, it was said to have taken "all the woods of Fife" (a county in Scotland famous for its shipbuilding), as well as having to import wood from France, other areas in the Baltic sea, and cargo ships scrapped for use in its construction. The Wyoming used 3100 tons wood and 300 tons metal. A ship of Noah's size would have required tens of thousands of trees (and on top of that, high quality timber trees) to be cut for its construction, something that is not exactly feasible considering the Ark was probably built somewhere in what is modern day Iraq, which as anyone can tell you has never exactly been known for its thick abundant forests. 

The day I visited, there was a group representing the `Extinction Rebellion`, had a banner from the Ark, and a small demonstration outside. I believe they were allowed 2 or 3 hours. 

A view from the bow end

There are numerous problems surrounding the flood and the Ark. Also with Noah living several hundred years!. However, it makes a great story. So does Harry Potter.

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