All Saints Church, Wordwell facts for kids
Quick facts for kids All Saints Church, Wordwell |
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All Saints Church, Wordwell, from the southeast
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| OS grid reference | TL 828 720 |
| Location | Wordwell, Suffolk |
| Country | England |
| Denomination | Anglican |
| Website | Churches Conservation Trust |
| Architecture | |
| Functional status | Redundant |
| Heritage designation | Grade I |
| Designated | 14 July 1955 |
| Architect(s) | S. S. Teulon (restoration) |
| Architectural type | Church |
| Style | Norman, Gothic, Gothic Revival |
| Completed | 1866 |
| Specifications | |
| Materials | Flint, tiled roofs, timber porch |
All Saints Church is a very old church in the small village of Wordwell, Suffolk, England. It's not used for regular church services anymore, which means it's a redundant Anglican church. However, it's a special building. It's listed as a Grade I building, which means it's very important and protected. The Churches Conservation Trust looks after it, making sure it stays in good condition for everyone to see. You can find it near the B1106 road, between Bury St Edmunds and Brandon.
Contents
History of the Church
This church was built a long, long time ago, around the year 1100. Over the centuries, changes were made to it. For example, in the 1300s and 1400s, new windows were put in. These new windows replaced the older, narrower ones from the 1100s.
Around the year 1500, a porch was added to the church. By the mid-1700s, the church was quite old and needed some repairs. Luckily, by 1829, it had been fixed up and was in good shape again.
Later in the 1800s, a big project called a "Victorian restoration" took place. This happened between 1857 and 1866. An architect named Samuel Sanders Teulon led this work. They fixed many parts of the church, including the front, the bellcote (where the bells are), the porch, and the roofs. They also worked on the pulpit (where sermons are given) and the reredos (a screen behind the altar).
Church Design and Features
Outside the Church
All Saints Church is built mostly from flint stones, which are common in this area. It also has special cut stones called freestone for details. The roofs are covered with tiles, and the porch is made of wood.
The church has a simple layout. It has a main hall called a nave, a porch on the south side, and a chancel at the east end. There's also a bellcote at the west end, which holds the church bells.
You can see many Norman features in the church, which means parts of it are from the 11th and 12th centuries. The windows that were added later are in a style called Decorated Gothic. The doorways on the north and south sides are Norman. They have round-headed arches and look very similar. They even show some influences from older Saxon buildings.
The south doorway has a special carved panel above it, called a tympanum. This carving shows two lions that look a bit like dogs, surrounded by plants. The north doorway is now blocked up, but its tympanum also has a carving. It shows two human figures. One is holding a ring, and the other has a grid-like object. Some people think these figures might be Saint Catherine with her wheel and Saint Lawrence with a gridiron.
Inside the Church
Inside, the arch that separates the nave from the chancel is also Norman. The round font, where baptisms take place, is also from the Norman period.
The wooden benches inside the church are very old, dating back to the 1400s. They have special carvings called "poppyheads" at the ends. Some of the benches also have other carvings, including pictures of animals. One bench even has carvings of wild boars and figures that have human faces but animal bodies! Most of the other things inside the church, like the pulpit and altar, were added during the restoration in 1888.
See also
