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St John the Baptist, Hellington
This church sits on a little hill
not far from the Yare, in that area south of Norwich
which has the largest concentration of medieval churches
in northern Europe. This is partly because it was the
most densely populated area of England at Domesday, but
also because the very nature of the lands between the
Yare and the Waveney, with rivers and creeks giving
access to settlements for trading, and a network of lanes
connecting fields, lent themselves to a large number of
smaller landowners. Under the circumstances, it is not
surprising that some have been declared redundant.
Perhaps the only surprise is quite how many are still in
use by the Church of England.
St John the Baptist is in the care of the Churches
Conservation Trust (CCT), a tribute to the fact that it
is architecturally more significant than many of its
neighbours. As the CCT guide observes, this is firstly
due to the amount of money lavished on it by the de
Kerdiston family in the 14th century, and then the
following century, a period of major church rebuilding
elsewhere in East Anglia, barely touched it. This may be
because the manor was by then in the hands of the
fabulously wealthy de la Pole family, and as absentee
landlords their priorities may have been elsewhere.
Major repairs and restructuring are recorded in the late
17th Century after the re-establishment of the Church of
England. The Manor had been in the ownership of the
strongly puritan Gaudy family during the Commonwealth,
and expenditure on church buildings would have been
looked on with some suspicion.Curiousities arise as a
result of these repairs, even puzzles.
Hellington benefited from an early
19th century restoration, a reasonably thoughtful one of
about 1840, and then an extremely late one that removed
the more objectionable features of the first. There
appears to have been a succession of High Church Rectors
here, some, ironically, members of the Denny family who
had been vociferous puritans and supporters of the
iconoclast William Dowsing who had cleansed churches in
Suffolk and Cambridgeshire just two centuries earlier.
However, there was never a middle-brow spoilation of the
interior.
The most striking sight as you enter the churchyard is
the porch. It is so unusual that it tends to have church
historians hedging their bets. Cautley thought it
interesting, Pevsner spectacular, both of which are
undeniable. Decorated period porches are not unknown in
this part of Norfolk, but they are unusual, and the sheer
proportions of the porch, particularly against that
Norman doorway and the great round tower beyond, give
pause for thought. Those angled-niches, for example. Not
only are they completely out of proportion, but they
appear to have broken springings for vaulting at their
tops. Further, the springing points forward, suggesting
that originally these niches were inside a vaulted
structure. Also curious of proportion are the large
ogee-headed arches in the side walls of the porch. Did
they ever contain glass? And finally, given that the
structure is so big, why is it too narrow for the Norman
doorway? It cuts into it on either side. Surely no 14th
century mason would have done such a thing.
Like all CCT churches, the interior is simple, clean,
well-kept. The great Decorated east window with its 1860s
glass by J & J King of Norwich fills the chancel with
light even on a gloomy day thanks to their customary use
of light pastel-coloured glass. As if echoing the
grandeur outside the chancel arch capitals are elaborate.
Before it there is an interesting brass of 1643 to Sir
Anthony Gaudy which features his symbol of a tortoise.
You step into the light of the chancel, and look back
into the nave. It seems older than where you are standing
now, and is probably essentially the Norman church, its
walls extended upwards - you can see the blocked 14th
century clerestory from outside. The chancel is quite
different, a creamy, sophisticated place, as long and
wide and tall as the nave against which it stands.
The enquiry into the state of the chancel that preceded
the restoration of the late 17th century throws up an
intriguing, crucial detail. The Bishop wanted to know who
would be responsible for the upkeep of the western part
of the chancel, the parish or the rectory? This was
because at some point the roodscreen had been moved
eastwards from the chancel arch to about halfway up the
chancel.
Why was this done? We know it was originally in the arch,
because the fitting holes are still there today. Paul
Cattermole, in his exceptionally rigorous guide to the
church, suggests that it was done in the late 15th
Century to accommodate a larger congregation instead of
rebuilding the nave with aisles - rather, they would be
allowed to flow into the western part of the chancel.
This sounds convincing, but I think it is flawed.
Firstly, in common with the rest of Norfolk, the
population of this parish was actually much smaller in
the 15th Century than it had been 150 years previously
when the chancel was built. If it followed the common
pattern, it would probably not return to its pre-Black
Death levels until well into the 17th Century, reaching a
peak for the 1851 census, before fading away.
Secondly, it would be an unusual thing to do. I have not
come across a screen moved eastwards in the 15th Century
anywhere in East Anglia - indeed, the opposite is
sometimes the case. And aisles were not built on to
churches to accomodate larger congregations, but to allow
the full panoply of processions required by the late
medieval liturgy. Aisles were a luxury, and their
existence is usually the result of bequests. Such
bequests were apparently not made here at Hellington, but
we know that the Manor was in the hands of a fabulously
rich family with a reputation for doing extravagant
things to churches. If there had been need here, can we
assume they would have done something about it?
I wandered outside in the thick undergrowth thinking
about what might have happened. I came to the Norman
north door which is not as extravagant as that to the
south but is exposed completely, unlike its grander
companion under that porch. I wondered at first if the
porch might have been a 19th century Confection. But no,
for Ladbroke drew it in the 1820s, and Higham ten years
earlier, so it was certainly here before the Tractarian
restorations which would have loved such a thing and
would have been capable of concocting it. Higham found it
lined with stone benches - and yet, it is so wildly open
to the elements.
And then I thought about that chancel screen being moved.
At the time of the Anglican Reformation in the mid-16th
Century, chancels fell into disuse as the new liturgy
demanded a holy table lengthways within the nave.
Archbishop Laud, in the early 17th Century, reinstated
them, insisting that altars should be placed sideways
against the east wall, and hemmed in by his innovation,
altar rails. Laud's enthusiasms were just one of the
factors that led to the Civil War, and the supression of
the Church of England. After the Restoration of the Crown
in 1660, the Anglicans were back in charge, but there was
never a widescale return to Laud's reforms and chancel
use. Indeed, for the next 150 years the focus of Anglican
worship would still be the pulpit, not the altar.
And yet, many chancels survived. The main reason, of
course, is that they had a number of other possible uses.
Some became schools, others vestries, others meeting
rooms. Laud had not required the return of screens where
they had been lost, but most parishes found them a useful
way of dividing off the chancel, which is why so many
survived. Because the Church of England retained many of
the administrative structures from the Catholic Church
that had preceded it, there was a difference in funding
arrangements for upkeep of nave and chancel. The nave was
the responsibility of the parish, and its repairs were
funded by the parish rates. Care of the chancel came from
the rectory, which is to say the income of the minister
or his patrons derived from tithes. This was what the
Bishop of Norwich was querying - in the years after the
Commonwealth, when church records were in a state of
disarray, what was the position at Hellington?
Historically, where had responsibility been demarcated?
Had the chancel been deliberately shortened to pass the
costs of its western part on to the parish?
This leads me to suspect that the screen was not moved
during the 15th century, but during the 17th, probably at
the time of the Commonwealth, to provide a smaller room
in this big chancel that could take on the functions
carried out by many other parishes in their porches. This
was either because there wasn't a porch at the time, or
it was unsuitable for such uses, perhaps by being too
small.
And so, the million dollar question - when was the
current porch built? I don't think a medieval mason would
have joined it so badly to the Norman doorway. And yet,
there is a small niche on the front of the porch, which
would not have been necessary after the Reformation,
until the Victorians reintroduced such things - but we
know the porch existed in substantially its current form
at least 20 years before the Victorians came along. And
so the front of the porch is medieval. But then, there
are those fabulous angled niches, which clearly were not
there originally. Coming around to the south side, I
looked again at the porch. I tried to work out why the
three openings in either side didn't look right, and I
decided it was because they are too far apart. It looks
more like a collonade. To my eye, what has happened here
is that someone, at some point, has used Gothic features
to create Classical forms.
It suddenly struck me that, although the front face of
the porch is the original from the 14th century, there is
no reason for the east and west walls of the porch to be
from that time. I think that at some point the entire
porch was demolished apart from the front face. It is a
fairly plain, simple front, and there is no reason to
think that the other walls would be more elaborate. The
east and west walls were replaced by the six Decorated
openings, three on each side - but because the stonework
was thicker than the original flint, they had to be cut
into the Norman doorway to fit. At the same time, the
angled niches, which like the openings came from another
building - nearby Langley Abbey perhaps? - were stuck at
angles onto the front of the porch, wholly out of keeping
and proportion.
When did this happen? If the dividing off of half the
chancel by the screen, which remained in place until
1840, was for use as a meeting room making it unnecessary
to use the porch for such things, and thus the porch was
not needed for parish business, it is possible that this
splendid, fascinating and yet essentially useless
structure is the work of an enthusiastic 18th century
antiquarian. But I don't suppose we will ever know for
sure.
Simon Knott, November 2020
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