St Peter, Elmsett

     Just returned from a short visit in London, which took in the Queen's funeral. More of that, though, in a subsequent post. On Wednesday we took the train into Suffolk to visit friends in their new house. It was a deeply welcome return to East Anglia; my first visit since moving to Wales. It felt very remote there among the great wide fields and vast skies. The silence was palpable.

     The nearest church to our friends' house was St Peter in Elmsett, almost alone in the fields at a distance from the actual village; a simple structure of flint rubble and stone dressings - a tower, nave and chancel. A hurried visit it was, and a few snatched photographs. And, oh, how melancholy those photographs appear today. The tower rather gaunt. External textures were fantastic, with an excellent e window. Victorian porch on s side sheltering scant remains of Medieval wooden predecessor.  Inside was the usual translucent E Anglian space with lots of clear glass, though the nave too crowded with stuff - that usual Anglican distraction from the divine. Interior thankfully not too heavily gone over by the Victorians. Plaster ceilings. Lovely pamment flooring and old ledgerstones. And a rarity - three sided communion rails. Damson jam for sale near the four-square Norman font and cooking apples in a cardboard box in the porch. What more could one ask for?

      Opposite, on the other side of the road the Tithe Memorial of 1935.

I thought I'd add, 14.10.22, that travelling by train we passed through Stratford. From the train, at least, the Olympic site look utterly dreadful; the ArcelorMittal Orbit, by Sir Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond worse than mediocre. The Infernal City is ubiquitous.