Thornham Parva is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Mid Suffolk Mid Suffolk is a local government district in Suffolk, England. Its council was based in Needham Market until late 2017, and is currently sharing offices with the Suffolk County Council in Ipswich. The largest town of Mid Suffolk is Stowmarket. ...

district of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

in eastern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Located to the north of sister village

Thornham Magna Thornham Magna is the larger sister village of Thornham Parva on the former estate of Thornham Hall, the Henniker family seat, in Suffolk. It is about from Eye and close to the A140 road from Norwich to Ipswich. The two villages, both mention ...

and around five miles south of Diss, in 2005 its population was 50. By the time of the 2011 Census populations of less than 100 were not maintained separately and this village was included in the population of Thornham Magna.

St Mary's Church

The small, thatched St Mary's Church is a Grade I listed building. It has early 14th-century wall paintings, on the south wall, the early years of Christ and on the north wall, the martyrdom of St Edmund. There is a circular window in the west wall of the nave that is said to be late Anglo-Saxon as well as the famous

retable A retable is a structure or element placed either on or immediately behind and above the altar or communion table of a church. At the minimum it may be a simple shelf for candles behind an altar, but it can also be a large and elaborate structur ...

. Architect

Basil Spence Sir Basil Urwin Spence, (13 August 1907 – 19 November 1976) was a Scottish architect, most notably associated with Coventry Cathedral in England and the Beehive in New Zealand, but also responsible for numerous other buildings in the Moderni ...

died in 1976 at his home at

Yaxley, Suffolk Yaxley is a small village just west of Eye in Suffolk, England. The name means 'cuckoo-clearing'. Church of St. Mary Pevsner describes the north porch of the 12th-century church as 'one of the most swagger in Suffolk'. Inside the church are ...

and was buried at Thornham Parva. The graves of Dame

Anne Warburton Dame Anne Warburton (8 June 1927 – 4 June 2015) was a British diplomat who was the first female British ambassador. She served as British Ambassador to Denmark from 1976 to 1983 and British Permanent Representative to the United Nations in ...

, the first female British ambassador, and the violinist, Frederick Grinke, also lie within the churchyard.

Thornham Parva Retable

The Thornham Parva Retable is a long medieval

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

, thought to have been created in the 1330s for a Dominican Priory. It is the largest surviving altarpiece from the English Middle Ages. It survived the reformers of the 16th Century, who raged against idolatry and destroyed most of England's medieval culture, by being removed from the priory. It was discovered in 1927 in a loft at Thornham Hall. The local landowner,

Lord Henniker Baron Henniker, of Stratford-upon-Slaney in the County of Wicklow, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for Sir John Henniker, 2nd Baronet, who had previously represented Sudbury and Dover in the House of Commons. His son ...

donated it to the church of Thornham Parva where his brother was parson. The origins of the retable were a puzzle but the picture itself provided vital clues. The figures pinpointed links with the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

. At either end are St Dominic and St Peter Martyr, joint patrons of the Dominicans. St Catherine and St Margaret of Antioch were the order's mascots. The Apostles Peter and Paul, who were believed to have spoken to St Dominic, all point towards Dominican interest. The presence of St Edmund suggests an East Anglian link. John the Baptist's figure might seem more obscure, but the benefactors of the

Dominican Priory Dominican may refer to: * Someone or something from or related to the Dominican Republic ( , stress on the "mi"), on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles, in the Caribbean ** People of the Dominican Republic ** Demographics of the Domi ...

Thetford Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24,340 ...

John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey John de Warenne (24/30 June 1286 - June 1347), 7th Earl of Surrey, was the last Warenne earl of Surrey. Life John was born on either 24 or 30 June 1286 and baptised on 7 November of that year.He was the son of William de Warenne, the only son o ...

and

Edmund Gonville Edmund Gonville (died 1351) founded Gonville Hall in 1348, which later was re-founded by John Caius to become Gonville and Caius College. Gonville Hall was his third foundation. Before this he had founded two religious houses, a College at Rushford, ...

would have expected their namesakes to be part of the finished painting. The retable returned to Thornham Parva church in 2003, following eight years of restoration by the

Hamilton Kerr Institute The Hamilton Kerr Institute is a branch of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridgeshire, England, dedicated to the study and conservation of easel paintings. It is also part of the University of Cambridge. Facilities and logistics The institute wa ...

in Cambridge. Using sturgeon glue, applied with tiny dabs of cotton buds, inch by inch the layers of grime were removed to reveal rich gold and glowing autumnal palette of translucent reds, purples and greens which the original artist used.

References

{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District