All Saints Church is a
redundant Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
church in the village of
Wordwell
Wordwell is a small village and civil parish in Suffolk, England, about five miles North of Bury St Edmunds. The village was hit by the Black Death in 1348 and never recovered in terms of population; in 2005 it was estimated to have only 20 resi ...
,
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 ...
, England. It is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...
as a designated Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
,
and is under the care of the
Churches Conservation Trust
The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...
.
It stands in a small community alongside the B1106 road between
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
and
Brandon
Brandon may refer to:
Names and people
*Brandon (given name), a male given name
* Brandon (surname), a surname with several different origins
Places
Australia
*Brandon, a farm and 19th century homestead in Seaham, New South Wales
*Brandon, Q ...
.
History
The church dates from about 1100. During the 14th and 15th centuries new windows were installed to replace the 12th-century
lancet window
A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...
s. A porch was added in about 1500. By 1757 the church was in a "run down" condition, but it had been "put into good order" by 1829. Later in the 19th century a
restoration
Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to:
* Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
** Audio restoration
** Film restoration
** Image restoration
** Textile restoration
* Restoration ecology
...
was carried out between 1857 and 1866 by
S. S. Teulon. This included work on the west front, the
bellcote
A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...
, the porch, the priest's doorway, the roofs, the
pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...
and the
reredos
A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images.
The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...
.
[
]
Architecture
Exterior
All Saints is constructed in flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...
rubble
Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionary ...
, with freestone dressings. The roofs are tiled, and the porch is timber. Its plan is simple, consisting of a nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
with a south porch, a chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ove ...
, and a bellcote at the west end.[ The church contains ]Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
features,[ while the windows added later are in Decorated style.][ The north and south doorways are Norman with round-headed arches; they are identical in form, and have ]Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
influences. The tympanum of the south doorway contains a pair of lions with dog-like features surrounded by foliage. The north doorway is blocked, and its tympanum contains two human figures, one holding a ring. There is a grid-like object between them.[ It has been suggested that they represent Saint Catherine and her wheel, and Saint Lawrence with a gridiron.][
]
Interior
The chancel arch is also Norman, as is the circular font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
. The benches date from the 15th century and have carvings. All the bench ends have poppyheads. Some of the benches have additional carvings, including representations of animals. One bench is carved on its back with wild boars, and figures having human faces but animal bodies. The rest of the fittings date from the 1888 restoration.[
]
See also
*
References
{{Authority control
Grade I listed churches in Suffolk
Church of England church buildings in Suffolk
English churches with Norman architecture
English Gothic architecture in Suffolk
Gothic Revival architecture in Suffolk
Churches completed in 1866
Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust
19th-century Church of England church buildings
1866 establishments in England