Romantic ruins to close the year
Dear All,
After a long-ish absence I thought I would pop back into your inboxes with a slightly festive letter about a ruin for which I have a soft spot. If you follow Boudicca’s Way across the Norfolk fields, then dodge off it slightly south of the village of Saxlingham Nethergate you’ll find a copse of trees towards the top of the ‘hill’. I grew up here and am convinced this counts as a hill, though latter experience around the UK and other countries suggests I may not be correct in this, decide for yourself from the photograph below!
The copse lies in the old parish of Saxlingham Thorpe, and though the modern day hamlet is across the ‘main road’ the historic Saxlingham Thorpe was here on the ‘hill’. In summer you can barely see through the copse but the footpath cuts across a drainage ditch and through a short woodland path to an overgrown clearing. The site is consecrated ground and in my schmaltzier moods I would happily say I feel it; there’s something about the atmosphere up there, hugged by trees, hidden from the world, encircled by the ditch. Maybe it’s just the trees and the silence, or maybe its the atmosphere of a place where people have continually if sporadically prayed for millennia. Who knows, but it’s special.
In amongst these trees is a ruined church. Meet the Assumption of St Mary Saxlingham Thorpe; latterly known as St Mary the Virgin when we all got a bit less Catholic, and known locally as St Mary Magdalene because Saxlingham Nethergate’s church is St Mary the Virgin and perhaps the apocryphal contrast appealed?
She’s largely built of flint, the stones you find all over the fields here, with some remaining dressed stone and red brick. It’s probable the first church on this site was built of timber in the late Saxon period (c.900-1000 CE), with a nave later built of stone to the west of the original structure. As the wealth of the area increased the a new stone chancel was added around the original timber church. A tower and buttresses were added around 1500. But around 1684 she was abandoned, and in 1687 she was officially ‘ruined’ and her materials taken to repair and extend St Mary the Virgin in the adjacent village of Saxlingham Nethergate. Some of the exquisite 12th and 13th century stained glass in the Nethergate church may have come from here as it sits awkwardly in the window openings of the Nethergate church. However as most of St Mary Magdalene’s windows are long gone we can only guess at what once was.
The village that sustained her dispersed, according to local legend, due to the black death. Sensible local historians have also pointed out the poor soil and better prospects of adjacent villages- Newton Flotman even had a mill- but it’s a rather less romantic story. Today she is along a popular route for local dog walkers and a small group of concerned locals are trying to raise awareness that she is not a playground as some damage has recently been done after it was advertised as a great place to explore on a local parents facebook group (why?! Ancient crumbling masonry and half buried flints are not high on my list of playground must-haves).
Despite the fact that she’s broken and barely there, despite the fact that she’s in a muddy copse and slowly crumbling there’s something a tiny bit transcendent about her. It’s not just the romance of ruins I don’t think- though my brother-in-law did propose to my sister in amongst these stones, but the way the stones almost seem to whisper to you when you sit among them. The remaining window openings look almost as beautiful as they must have when glazed when they frame sunlight peering through the surrounding leaves and branches. Despite being theoretically abandoned I know I am not the only one in the village with a soft spot for these leaning flint walls- something about her sidles her way into your heart, if I build one building in the course of my career as an architect which is held in such affection I will have achieved enough!
Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate!
Until next time
Eleanor