|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
St. Peter & St. Paul, Lavenham The organ, under restoration
when we visited, is a 3 Manual organ built originally by ‘Father’
Willis in 1885 for Holy Trinity, Bournemouth. It was rebuilt in 1964 by
Degens & Rippin. In 1972, it was moved to St. Swithin, Bournemouth,
then moved in 1996 by the Rector, Revd. Derrick Stiff, under the guidance
of John Bailey (a Colchester man trained by Grant, Degens & Bradbeer). History Suffolk has few more spectacular sights than St. Peter and St. Paul in its trim churchyard at the top of the hill, and Lavenham is a hilly place, set in hilly country. This was the heart of the cloth country, and villages all around produced the cloth that made the merchants of Lavenham wealthy, and in turn produced this magnificent 15th century building. St. Peter and St. Paul stands as a sentinel over the Suffolk cloth villages. A marvellous trick of making the church lift upwards is created by the larger windows at the east of the south aisle. St. Peter and St. Paul can be seen for miles around, its grand tower punctuating the skyline as a surprise as one travels the mid-Suffolk lanes. St. Peter and St. Paul has the most urban setting of the great Suffolk cloth churches. This tames it slightly, and it is further tamed by being set in Suffolk's main tourist town. If this church was set in a more remote place, it would have quite a different character. Nonetheless, it is a tremendous sight. As many churches are, it is well worth a walk around the outside before you go in. The architect may very well
have been John Wastell, who built Great St Mary in Cambridge, which is
very similar. A marvellous trick of making the south aisle chapel windows
larger than the south aisle windows encourages the feeling of a building
that lifts upwards. This building is very late perpendicular. It was probably
not complete until 1530, on the very eve of the Reformation. In the ferment of the 1530's,
it must already have been unclear if this church could ever be fully used
for the purposes for which it was intended. Not far from the church stands
the Guildhall, completed in the 1530s and never used much at all for its
original purpose before the Reformation swept the guilds and the chantries
and the priests away. But for a few short years, the guild of St Mary
maintained a chantry altar and priest here.
|
||
