All Saints, Blythburgh

As threatened, we're off today to visit All Saints' Church at Blythburgh.
Blythburgh is a tiny hamlet sitting on a sandy hillock just inland from Southwold and overlooking a vast tidal salt marsh, permanently a'twitch with birdwatchers.
It boasts about ten houses clustered around one of the largest churches in this or any other area.
And nothing else.
At all.
It's an odd kind of place.
You can see the outside of the church and the magnificent view of it from across the marsh in the piece I posted earlier this week, when I trudged across the frozen mud to photograph it.

The outside is beautiful; a massive, late Gothic, perpendicular priory church that would grace any city, yet here it is all on its lonesome, miles from anywhere.
Of course, my favourite part of the exterior is the quite astonishing dancing bear with a monster stiffy which I photographed for my second ever post (you'll have to click the link to see it because I'm sick of loading bloody photographs).
Those mediæval stonemasons liked a good giggle.
As you can only see it with a telephoto lens the size of your leg it has remained unnoticed for centuries and it was only thanks to Helly wanting me to photograph all of the carvings so she could reproduce some in her studio that we came across it.

Right. Enough prattle. Let's take a look inside, shall we?
(cue: sound effect of creaking door) …


A general view from behind the font gives an idea of the airy spaciousness achieved by the "perpendicular" style of late Gothic church architecture.
Contrast this with my photos of the massive, chunky Romanesque Norwich Cathedral (I can't be arsed to do another link; if you want to look, follow the "Norwich" link in the sidebar … it's somewhere down near the bottom of that).
I love the warmth of the old brick pamment floor. The whole church has a lovely "feel", not cold or uninviting like some places.

This is what most historians and architects come to see.
What can only be described by words such as beautiful, magnificent, spiffy or boffo; the incomparably splendid "Angel Roof".

Good, innit?

Blythburgh boasts a fabulous set of misericords, probably second only to Boston Stump.
I've got a full set of photos of these but I'm buggered if I'm loading all that lot up, so this will have to do.
Some of them are very odd indeed.

As is this guy.
I have no idea what he is, but I think all we need to know is that he is wearing a chamberpot on his head and sports a quite startling codpiece, which seems to have acquired somewhat more of a lustrous polish than the rest of him.

Spooky time.
Call in the Scooby Gang.
Shortly after the church was built a massive storm brought down the tower and the congregation cowering inside the church were not particularly comforted by the appearance of Satan himself.
Apparently he turned up in fancy dress as a big black dog, ran around for a bit and clawed his way out through this very door, leaving his burnt claw marks on the right hand leaf.
According to local folklore he then went off to terrorise Bungay, a tradition that little brother Phil and his reprobate cronies carry on most weekends to this very day.

This is a photo of one end of the rood screen.
Somewhere in it is hidden Old Dive.
Can you spot him?

Yup. There I am, bestowing my benedictions upon you all from a very odd little window, the use of which I've never quite figured out, though the BBC made good use of it when they recorded Songs Of Praise from here.
I have yet to be convinced that the mediæval builders put it there for the benfit of TV cameras, however.

This is the cool little staircase that leads up to it.

I like this one.
Clerestory windows are designed to do just this.
Lovely.

Here's that wonderful roof again, with the light from the clerestory doing its thang.

So that's Blythburgh All Saints' Church.

Spiffy, huh?