Saint Mary’s Church Wherstead Suffolk Brief History and Guide WELCOME to this ancient and interesting church, which has stood for 900 years on its knoll overlooking the beautiful Orwell valley. We hope that you will enjoy its great charm and atmosphere, and above all we hope that you will feel at home here, because St. Mary’s is not just an ancient building, but is a living center for Christian worship – the purpose for which it was built. It is our Father’s House, and that is why the people of this tiny community cherish and care for it as they do. It is a place where people of all faiths or of none may find peace and inspiration and where Christians, whoever or whatever they are, can look upon as “Home”. WHERSTEAD is a scattered parish, its main center of population being along the village street, through which we travel to the church, passing the former smithy, the old village (rebuilt 1872) and the entrance to Wherstead Park. The mansion was designed by Wyatville in 1792 for Sir Robert Harland who, in 1813, exchanged the estate with Mr. John Vernon of Orwell Park on the other side of the river. It was rented for a short time by the parents of Edward FitzGerald. Sir Robert sold Orwell Park to Col. Tomline in 1847 and came back to spend his final year at Wherstead. Lady Harland (see Vernon, who died in 1860, left Wherstead to Charles Easlead, whose wife was Sir Robert Harland’s niece. The Park is now the Area Headquarters of the Electricity Board. Historical Development of the Church Like most mediaeval churches, St. Mary’s has evolved over the centuries, as people of different times and traditions have altered and beautified it. A church at Wherstead is mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086 and there was probably a church here in Saxon times. There may indeed have been a place of pagan worship on this spot; the huge boulders (or sarsen stones) upon which part of the tower rests, take us back to pre Christian days. The core of the present nave is certainly Norman, as we can see by its simple 11th century north doorway and slightly later south doorway. The tiny renewed Early English windows towards the west end of the chancel indicated that this was probably remodeled in the late 12th or early 13th century. During the 15th century the western tower was added. William Brown bequeathed 2 marks (about £1.35) in 1455 towards building this tower and in 1469 another donor left 20 shillings towards a new bell. Few items remain inside St. Mary’s from the times before the Reformation when the interior was a treasure-house of mediaeval colour and carving, providing a host of visual aids to instruct the ordinary people who could not read and were not Latin scholars. The chancel roof and the pattern of the bench-ends show the beauty of mediaeval design and the rood-loft staircase reminds us of the painted rood screen, with the loft (gallery) which surmounted it and the great Rood (Christ crucified, flanked by Our Lady and St. John) which crowned it – all gone. After the Reformation, when services were in English and there was less need for visual aids, much of the colour and carving was removed. What the Reformers in the mid 1500s did not remove, the Puritans in the 1640s did, so our churches became very plainly furnished for the Prayer Book worship of the Established Church, where the emphasis was on the preaching of the Word, with Communion four times per year. This lasted through the 18th and early 19th centuries. The antiquarian, David Elish Davy, visited this church in 1818 and 1843 and his notes give us some idea of what the church looked like then. He observed that the walls were very low and did not exceed 12 feet. The roofs were tiled except for that on the north side of the nave, which was covered with lead. The south doorway had been ruined with too much plaster and whitewash; its inner capitals had almost worn away. Most of the windows on the south side were square-headed 15th century ‘Perpendicular’ ones and the cast window was also of this date (as is seen in the sketch made by Henry Davy in 1838.) Inside, the church was equipped with irregular box-pews, and a few mediaeval benches also remained. On the north wall hung the Royal Arms, dated 1679. The old font was square, its “large and clumsy” bowl being held together by a piece of iron which surrounded it. The panels of its square stem had been filled in with black flints. On the north side fo the chancel stood the large manorial pew belonging to the Vernons and above it was a framed set of the Ten Commandments on the wall. Flanking the east window were the Lord’s Prayer and Creed. The sanctuary floor was at the same level as the other floors in the church and was not railed off; movable altar rails were brought in when needed for the convenience of the communicants. At the west end was a small gallery for musicians and a visitor to a service in the 1850s noted that it was occupied by four labouring men who formed the choir – he also remarked that the interior of the church was “of a most rude and primitive character, the only approach to anything like ornament being an escutcheon and a tablet in memory of the late Sir Robert Harland”. During the second half of the 19th century there was a great movement to restore and refurnish churches on pre-Reformation lines, bringing back what was good in mediaeval design and throwing out many of the innovations of the 17th and 18th centuries. Benches took the place of box-pews, the altar was given more prominence, galleries were removed and stained glass was put into the windows. Few churches escaped this Victorian restoration and St. Mary’s, which had more attention than most, was transformed in 1864, entirely through the generosity of the widow of G.A.C. Dashwood (he died the previous year at the age of 43). By this time the church was badly in need of repair. The roofs, walls and windows were in poor condition; the old wood and plaster porch was rotten, the nave had an ugly flat ceiling and the chancel roof had been plastered and whitewashed over. Only the tower was left untouched because it did not require attention; the rest of the building was altered drastically. The architect for the restoration was Richard M. Phipson, who restored many East Anglian churches, including St. Mary le Tower Ipswich. The contractors were the Ipswich firm of Ringham & Son. The remarkable Henry Ringham was the first person in Suffolk to restore churches in the Victorian era. As early as the 1840s this self-taught craftsman was carving oxquisito benches on mediaeval lines, carefully salvaging any ancient wood work and carving new work in strict conformity to it. Some of his finest work may be seen at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St. Martin. The church was reopened in October 1864, when the preacher was the Bishop of Norwich, in whose vast diocese most of Suffolk was situated until the diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich was formed in 1914. About 1900 the pinnacles were added to the tower, making St. Mary’s structurally the building we see today. Much as been done during the 20th century to improve and beautify the church and we see there worthy craftsmanship of our own times, which rightly takes it place alongside that of past ages. The tower has recently been well restored and the stonework of its pinnacles has been partly replaced. Having traced its long history, we now examine the features and treasures. Of St. Mary’s in detail. What to see outside the church The setting of an ancient church is a feature which is often overlooked by its visitors. It must be admitted however that few visitors to St. Mary’s could have possibly ignore its glorious situation, affording one of the most magnificent views from any church in the country. From its church yard we can look down the Orwell estuary towards Levington and Trimley and in the opposite direction are glimpses of Ipswich and its outskirts. This is a fine vantage point from which to view the 325 foot high chimneys of the Power Station at Cliff Quay, also the Orwell Bridge, opened in 1982, whose elegant features span the wide Orwell valley. It is worth walking along the bridge to look back at this little church, standing proudly upon its ridge. It is little wonder that people of ancient times liked to worship at “high and holy places”. The church-yard itself is trim, cared for and picturesque, with a downward slope towards the south. It contains some 18th century chest-tombs, also, to the south of the porch and near the fence, the grave of Coru Visser, with its inscription in two languages. He was a Dutch artist, who lived in Suffolk for over 40 years until his death in 1982 at the age of 79. He painted portraits of the Dutch Royal Family and his work may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum, also in the Christchurch Mansion at Ipswich. The grave of Emmy, his wife, who died in 1962, is also near the fence, further east. We enter the church-yard through a handsome lych-gate, designed by J.S.