St Mary Swaffham Bulbeck

The church of St. Mary stands at the south end of the High Street from which the fine window details of the chancel can be easily appreciated.  The earliest visible part of the church is the west tower, which was added to an existing aisleless church in the early 13th century, using the Early English style. A century later an aisled nave of four bays was built in the Decorated style.  In the middle of the 14th century a large and impressive chancel was built. It has flowing window tracery and in the south wall are a tomb recess, three stone seats (sedilia) and a drain (piscina) used to dispose of the water in which the holy vessels had been washed in a suitably reverent manner. This chancel was consecrated in 1346. The clearstorey with a finely decorated timber roof was added at the end of the 15th century.  The aisle roofs and the porches are of the same date.  The church was subjected to five restorations between 1842 and 2000, the latest being to install a tower screen and ringers’ gallery when two new bells were added.  The existing six bells were recast in 1820 by Robert Taylor of St. Neots.

The removal of the medieval rood screen and the virtual absence of medieval stained glass means that the interior has a light and airy appearance. The nave and aisles are filled with medieval benches, dating to about 1500. Their ends are decorated with a menagerie of birds, beasts and sea creatures, both real and fabulous. Another interesting piece of woodwork is a cedar chest with carved panels showing the birth of Christ and His Crucifixion. Over the chancel arch hangs the Royal Arms of George III (1801-17).

PICTURES NEEDED
 

The Bells!

The story of our bells started back in early 1998, when the PCC (Parochial Church Council) decided that it would be a good  idea to try their best to get some bells that would be "ringable"  in order for them to be able to ring in the millennium.

The following project plan was then drawn up:

The bells were to be rehung in a new steel frame that was to be fitted in the tower just below the original one that still remains in situ.
The existing six bells were to be quarter turned or retuned.
In order to fund this project the village set  to work on many fund-raising events in order to provide the money for  the refit, and a government grant was also acquired to help.
Some money was also given to us coming from  private means, in order to fund the purchase of two new trebles, thus making a ring of 8.

In September of 1998 the bells were sent off to the bell foundry in order for them to be retuned and also for two other bells to be made. All this went to plan, however we hit a snag when it came to re-hanging the bells...

The bell hangers had our church at the bottom of their list and so they were not hung in time to ring in the millennium. However the bells were finally in and ready to ring in the summer of the  millennium year, and were first rung in order to call people to church on the 28th of June 2000.

The tower is now used to call people to church on Sunday mornings, our practice night for ringing is Wednesdays at 1945. Anybody that would like to come along is most welcome.

PICTURES NEEDED
 

Toppling Tombstones and Crumbling Chests

As you pass by the churchyard there is a glimpse of an apparently timeless scene. There are grey and fawn tombstones weathered and tilting. Close to the chancel wall stand the more solid shapes of five chest tombs. More distantly are the tall beech trees. Here as the poet William Gray wrote 'each in his narrow cell for ever laid, the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep'. Yet this is a scene as much subject to change as are the nearby houses and streets.

Before 1700 there would just be few headstones and temporary wooden crosses among the vicar's grazing sheep and foraging geese. Then over the next 150 years the churchyard filled up with more permanent stones spreading outwards from the church, first on the north side, then on the south and east. As the village population became more literate after the opening of the school, so inscriptions recorded the dead and pious verses inspired the living. When burial space became more coveted, footstones were erected to indicate the full extent of each new grave space and so prevent any intercutting. The wealth of the yeoman farmers, the Rickards and the Bridgmans, and of the merchants, Thomas and Hannah Bowyer, was displayed by the building of chest tombs with inscriptions on the tomb lid. Another fashionable mid-Victorian introduction was the coped tomb, like a low stone tent, with inscriptions on the sloping sides. Ten of these were erected, mainly by incomer families, including the Victorian vicar William Fleetwood. For the remainder there were the simpler headstones, even though only a tenth of the village population could afford one.

What the churchyard also displays is the folk art of cherub heads and hourglasses, skulls and crossed bones, flaming hearts and palm branches. All are carved on more local stones long before the river barge, the railway or the carrier's cart brought dull Welsh slates and polished Scottish granites. These exotic stones are prominently displayed in the village cemetery which opened in 1886.

Filled with eight centuries of Christian burial the churchyard has now become a conservation area and perhaps a museum piece, serving as a resource for naturalists and family historians. However it shouldn't become just a manicured lawn with every stone laid flat for safety reasons (and ease of maintenance), nor should it become a wilderness where elder, sycamore, ivy and bramble establish their roots among neglected tombs. At the moment there is no neglect for fluorescent tape now blows in the breeze (or did until it blew away!) to warn where repair is needed and where the council is still 'mindful of the unhonoured dead'. Instead the churchyard remains a living reminder to the village community, whether active in the Easter egg hunt or relaxing at the September fete.

Lawrence Butler - July 2006

PICTURES NEEDED

Birds, Beasts and Hybrids

The bench-ends in St. Mary’s church are a rare survival from the medieval past.  Usually parishioners stood for the services or brought their own stools. Benches were seldom introduced in England before 1600. However in East Anglia and in Somerset they were fashionable from 1450 onwards. It seems likely that those in this village were carved in about 1490 when there were many small gifts of money to the church.  This was also when the vicar, John Smith (1494-1532), may have persuaded his parishioners to beautify their church.

Each bench in the central part of the church has a terminal at each end, with a carving on the top and another on the arm rest. Each bench in the aisle has a carving on the end near the pavement but is undecorated alongside the outer wall. The carvings are more complete in the side aisles but some are more damaged by woodworm. From the 34 benches that survive, it is possible to tell that there were three different themes.  The first was that in the central block of seats there were animals and birds which would be familiar to most parishioners.  In the north aisle the animals, birds and fish would be more exotic, perhaps illustrating a fable or moral tale.  In the south aisle the beasts were usually hybrids, putting together a lion’s head and body with a fish’s tail or some other mythical combination.

Even in the central block of seats there is a mix of the familiar (cock or duck) with the unfamiliar (dragon or serpent).  Wherever it is possible to be certain, the beast standing fiercely on the bench-end top was repeated by the same beast docilely kneeling or crouching on the arm rest. In three cases  the bench end has the male of the species at one end and the female at the other. Elsewhere some repetition does occur.

Woodcarvers in the later middle ages had a wide variety of sources to draw upon. The main book was The Bestiary (Book of Beasts) which described and illustrated about 120 different beasts, noting particularly their characteristics and drawing a moral tale about them – perhaps  praising their loyalty or highlighting their deceitful nature, just as Aesop’s Fables had done much earlier.  Real beasts like camels and elephants were found in the Bestiary, but so were serpents, mermaids, one-eyed giants and two-headed sea-monsters. Some of the hybrids found in Swaffham Bulbeck occur here, but another source was the illuminated prayer books known as Books of Hours or Psalters in which the margins were filled with all manner of fantastic concoctions. These were especially popular in East Anglia.  The Gorleston Psalter (now known as the Macclesfield Psalter) has just been bought by the Fitzwilliam Museum.  Another manuscript from Suffolk (now in Magdalene College Library) shows great care in making naturalistic drawings of animals and birds. These two ideas come together in Swaffham Bulbeck with a beaver’s web feet and flat tail being shown in careful detail, or with a bear’s wiry coat and sharp claws being realistically carved. So when the bench ends were carved they were at the height of fashion, though sadly not quite up to modern standards of comfort.

(printed in The Bulbeck Beacon, September 2005)