Church Heritage Record 633138

The present church of All Saints, Wetheringsett dates largely from the thirteenth century, with significant remodelling and extension in the fifteenth century and major restoration and refurnishing in the nineteenth century. On plan the church consists of a nave with north and south aisles and a long chancel. A south porch and west tower give off the nave and a vestry off the north side of the chancel. The building is faced with flint rubble with stone dressings, incorporating some flushwork detail. The nave and chancel roofs are slated, the aisles leaded. From the late thirteenth century are the nave arcade, chancel arch and the north and south doors to the aisles. The chancel and aisles are also likely to be of thirteenth century date, with later windows and roofs. The nave arcade consists of four wide bays, with quatrefoil piers; their arches (and that of the chancel) with hollow chamfers and a roll. Adjoining the chancel arch in the respond of the southeast nave arcade is an opening and winding stone stair to a former rood loft (there are also said to be surviving elements of the rood screen, not in situ, see below). In the wall of the south aisle is a further opening with stairs, to the loft of a former parclose screen. The long chancel has later windows but - judging from the unusual double angle piscina in the vestry (former chapel) on the north side, and the fine triple sedilia on the south side with pointed trefoil arches, Purbeck marble shafts and stiff-leafed decoration - it too is of essentially thirteenth century date. A priest’s door adjoins the sedilia on the south aide. Also thirteenth century are the north and south doors in the aisles, identically detailed with one order of colonettes and moulded two-centred arches. The south door is also medieval, repaired. Apart from the fourteenth century west window in the south aisle, which has reticulated tracery, the rest of the church is largely fifteenth century and of Perpendicular character. From this time is the tall west tower, square and of four stages, which (as at nearby Cotton) is open at its lower stage on the west side. Above this is a cusped image niche with an ogee head. There are further image niches set into the buttresses, which have flushwork chequerboard panelling (as does the battlemented parapet). The tall external tower arch has nineteenth century cast iron gates. Within the double-height space the floor is paved with Victorian encaustic tiles. The flint walls are unplastered, and the original timber roof has a hatch for lowering bells. A small doorway with chamfered arch on the north side leads to the upper stages of the tower, while the west door to the church is larger and more finely detailed. It has a cusped niche over. On the east side of this doorway, the tower buttresses project into the nave, overlapping with the eastern nave arcade. Over the door, a Sanctus bell window gives a view of the altar from the tower ringing floor. Also belonging to the late medieval remodelling and enlargement is the nave clerestory, with eight large, closely set three-light windows separated by thin buttresses, and with a flushwork panel at the east end; the nave roof, with shafted wall posts rising to embattled tie beams with pierced panelling above (renewed in 1828, according to the list entry); the south porch, of knapped flint and with a flushwork parapet, its entrance decorated with fleurons, lion corbels, shields and two small niches and its interior with an arch-braced and moulded roof; and the roofs (much restored) and remaining three-light windows of the aisles. From 1590 until his death in 1616 the rector of All Saints was Richard Hakluyt. He also held positions at Bristol Cathedral (where there is a window to him by C. E. Kempe) and Westminster Abbey (where he is buried). Hakluyt was chaplain to Robert Cecil, Secretary of State of Elizabeth I and James I, and is best known for his writings promoting the colonisation of North America. He lived in the late medieval rectory on the eastern edge of the churchyard. In 2016, at the time of the fourth centenary of Hakluyt’s death, a monument was erected in the chancel. On 26 August 1643 the church was visited by the Laxfield-born William Dowsing, who had been appointed earlier that year as ‘Commissioner for removing the monuments of idolatry and superstition from churches in the Eastern Association’. The Puritan iconoclast gave orders for the removal of ‘19 crosses. 16 about the arches of the church, and 3 on the Porch; a Picture on the porch a Triangle for the Trinity, to be done’.

The appearance of the church before its major Victorian restoration is shown in a print of 1839 hanging in the south aisle (figure 1). This appears to show a parapet and continuous range of flat-headed windows in the nave clerestorey, and a blocked window on the east side of the porch. The church was restored in the 1850s by the Suffolk builder and carpenter Henry Ringham, under the supervision of the rector, the Revd. Robert Moore, following plans supplied by S. S. Teulon (Bettley/Pevsner). The restoration of the chancel came first, in 1851, and involved the provision of a stone reredos, tiled floor, choir seating and new timber panelled ceiling (and in all likelihood a new roof structure; the rendering of the nave east gable and the slating of the roofs may also belong to this phase). The north vestry probably also dates from this time; it is of materials matching the rest of the church, but raised over a low yellow brick plinth. Restoration of the nave followed in 1857, and included the renewal of the clerestory (to a new window design and minus the parapet, if the 1839 print is to be trusted) and new seating, the latter grant aided by the Incorporated Church Building Society (see ground plan at figure 2). It is likely that the tower and south porch were also restored at this time and the organ installed, a memorial to Francis, the youngest son of the Revd Robert Moore, who died in 1856. The organ is shown at the east end of the north aisle in the plan of c.1855-7, but its current location is in the south aisle. Surviving medieval furnishings include:  In the chancel, two fifteenth century carved misericords  According to Cautley and Bettley, parts of the dado of the rood screen are located by the organ, while Bettley suggesting parts are re-used in the casing of the organ; this is not immediately apparent  Some fifteenth century poppyhead bench ends at the west end of the nave  The font base, with eight engaged shafts, may be thirteenth century. Post-medieval, pre-Victorian furnishings of note include:  In the chancel, a fine early Stuart holy table with robust carved detail  In the chancel and nave floors, a series of seventeenth and eighteenth century ledger slabs, several of them to members of the Sheppard family  Near the south door, an old oak chest, possibly seventeenth century, with iron strapwork  The font bowl, octagonal with shields, is said to date from 1660-5, possibly making good damage wrought by William Dowsing some twenty years earlier  On the north aisle wall, a painted timber benefaction board dated 1715, which includes provision by John Sheppard, clerk, for an annual dinner for twenty poor people of the parish in the church steeple (sic). Victorian furnishings include:  The stone reredos, incorporating inscribed and painted Lord’s Prayer, Creed and Commandments  Black and red encaustic tile floor to chancel  Timber communion rails  Small brass memorial in chancel to Henry Brooke of Wetheringsett Manor (d.1892), recording his ‘unsparing benevolence in the parish’  Choir and clergy stalls with carved poppyhead bench ends, the benches and dado/backing carved with blind cusped arcading, possibly incorporating some panels from the rood screen dado (Cautley)  In the nave, an octagonal oak pulpit and steps, the panels of the pulpit with blind cusped arcading  Oak lectern  Nave and aisle seating with carved poppyhead bench ends, following surviving late-medieval examples in the nave  In the south aisle, a brass plate on the organ records that it is a memorial to Francis, the youngest son of the Revd Robert Moore, who died in 1856 (builder unknown). Twentieth century and later furnishings of note include:  The four-light east window, the only stained glass in the church, depicting the Sermon on the Mount, erected by parishioners and friends in 1908 (attributed by Haward on stylistic grounds to Heaton, Butler & Bayne)  In the chancel, a Portland stone monument to Richard Hakluyt, erected 2016  In the north aisle, a marble war memorial recording 22 parishioners killed in the First World War, with a further tablet below recording the six who died in the Second World War. The memorial cost £100 (raised by public subscription) and was unveiled in 1920 (more information here)  The oak font cover is in memory of Mabel May Ribbons (d. 21 September 1959).