ST MICHAEL. All cemented. The nave with a variety of styles, entertaining to follow. In the N wall one C12 window, a C12 doorway with decorated abaci, a C13 lancet, a simple C14 two-light window. Other early C14 types of two-lights in the S wall, where the arrangement of the windows is completely haphazard. The S doorway is a handsome C15 piece, decorated in one order with fleurons, in the other with figures of a king and a queen and small suspended shields. The chancel is just as varied. It has a Sedile of the C13 with a curiously wilful arch on short shafts and a late C14 chancel arch with small demi-figures of angels in the capitals, but E, N, and S windows and ceiling are of 1597. The windows very domestic, with straight tops and transomes. The roof has collar-beams on scrolly braces more like brackets, and is ceiled. C15 brick W tower with diagonal buttresses. - PULPIT. Elizabethan with panelling, moulded below, blank-arched above in the way familiar in Elizabethan furniture, and yet another tier of small foliage panels above these (as at Great Horkesley). - PAINTING. One C15 head high up above the second S Window from the E in the nave. - PLATE. Cup of 1576 (base modern); another Elizabethan Cup; secular Dish of 1707.
RAMSEY. It stands on the high road to Harwich, with its cottages in the valley, a 16th century farmhouse standing conspicuous by a stream, and the church on a hill towards the sea. The church has a Norman nave and the tower takes us back to the time of Agincourt. At the 500-year-old doorway of the church is a carving of the coronation of the Madonna, a quaint longhaired figure at prayer, and there are crowns, moons, stars, and other small carvings on the mouldings. The door has been on its hinges five centuries, its rich carving much battered by time. The chancel roof is 16th century and the carved pulpit 17th.
Simon K -
Here we are in suburban Harwich. The official name of the parish is Ramsey and Parkeston, and we overlook the international port, but this church is surrounded by suburban estates and fields. A battered old church, the flint tower repaired in brick and much of the 13th Century with a striking Elizabethan east window, most un-East Anglian.
Locked, no keyholder, though I could get into the porch. This was fortunate, because the star of the show here is the south doorway, an extraordinary 15th Century thing worthy of Thaxted or Southwold, with Saints, monograms and at the top the coronation of the Blessed Virgin - in a more famous church it would be much better known.
Outside, a fine 19th Century memorial has large, rusty anchors forming a fence around it. While I photographed this, the woman who'd been fiddling with papers at Dovercourt tipped up. It turned out she was the Vicar. "Is it possible to see inside?" "This is your lucky day, isn't it", she replied. I took her observation to mean that it wasn't considered customary for people to be allowed to see inside Dovercourt and Ramsey churches.
A lovely interior, very early medieval, Norman tipping into EE, well cared for and the furnishings are what must have passed for high quality in the 1860s. There is a rare Commonwealth arms set. My photograph didn't come out, unfortunately, but I was glad I'd seen it.
We talked for about twenty minutes, me being passionate about the future of medieval churches, her rather despondent about the ability of congregations to look after them in the future. We talked about the way funding might work, and agreed that the future looked bleak without public money.
I expect this one to be redundant in ten years time. If the CCT take it on, as they should, then it will be open and we will all be able to see inside.
Simon K -
Here we are in suburban Harwich. The official name of the parish is Ramsey and Parkeston, and we overlook the international port, but this church is surrounded by suburban estates and fields. A battered old church, the flint tower repaired in brick and much of the 13th Century with a striking Elizabethan east window, most un-East Anglian.
Locked, no keyholder, though I could get into the porch. This was fortunate, because the star of the show here is the south doorway, an extraordinary 15th Century thing worthy of Thaxted or Southwold, with Saints, monograms and at the top the coronation of the Blessed Virgin - in a more famous church it would be much better known.
Outside, a fine 19th Century memorial has large, rusty anchors forming a fence around it. While I photographed this, the woman who'd been fiddling with papers at Dovercourt tipped up. It turned out she was the Vicar. "Is it possible to see inside?" "This is your lucky day, isn't it", she replied. I took her observation to mean that it wasn't considered customary for people to be allowed to see inside Dovercourt and Ramsey churches.
A lovely interior, very early medieval, Norman tipping into EE, well cared for and the furnishings are what must have passed for high quality in the 1860s. There is a rare Commonwealth arms set. My photograph didn't come out, unfortunately, but I was glad I'd seen it.
We talked for about twenty minutes, me being passionate about the future of medieval churches, her rather despondent about the ability of congregations to look after them in the future. We talked about the way funding might work, and agreed that the future looked bleak without public money.
I expect this one to be redundant in ten years time. If the CCT take it on, as they should, then it will be open and we will all be able to see inside.
I found it locked today as well, but I did find that it is open every Thursday morning until 12 as it has a Eucharist at 10.
ReplyDelete