Tuesday 26 February 2013

Denham, Suffolk

Last Wednesday I visited 10 new churches (the elusive St Mary in Little Bradley eluded me) and made 5 re-visits (Barnadiston, Rougham, Alpheton, Little Thurlow and Great Wratting).

St Mary was the first new visit of the day but was sadly locked although a keyholder was listed - in keeping with my philosophy I shot exteriors and moved on.

ST MARY. Almost a C19 building. N doorway plainest Norman. NE chapel a C17 addition. - PLATE. Paten 1728. - MONUMENTS. Sir Edward Lewkenor d. 1605. Big four-poster with kneeling family, ten of them, in double file, facing E. Big super-structure with obelisks and strapwork. Not good. - Edward Lewkenor d. 1635. White and black marble. Recumbent elfigy in armour, his head on a half-rolled-up straw mat. Tomb-chest with columns and cartouches with shields. Back wall with columns carrying an entablature rising in a semicircle in the middle.

St Mary (1)

DENHAM. It is near Bury St Edmunds, and to it came the ancient Britons, the Saxons, and the Normans, occupying in their turn the fortified mound called Denham Castle. Its medieval church has a red-brick chapel railed off by ironwork, into which we can peer at two fine monuments of the Lewkenors, whose home was close by at a farmhouse which has still one of its four old guardhouses. Kneeling in pairs on a tomb are Sir Edward Lewkenor of Shakespeare’s day, his wife, and eight children, above them being a gorgeous canopy on marble pillars. On another tomb lies a later Sir Edward Lewkenor in armour, sculptured in white marble with his sword by his side.

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