St Peter - Freston, Suffolk
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SMacB
N 52° 00.710 E 001° 09.738
31U E 373879 N 5763948
St Peter's church, Freston. A 13th - 14th century church with extensive restoration of 1875. 19th century additions include vestry and porch.
Waymark Code: WMPTH4
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/18/2015
Views: 1
"This church was almost entirely rebuilt by the Victorians, but in a rather jaunty style, including an Arts-and-Crafts-ish octagonal vestry on the north side with a little chimney above it. On the south side is the surprise of the flamboyant wooden life-size figure of Peace, holding her laurel wreath high, and surmounting the parish war memorial. She looks for all the world as if she is on holiday here from the main square of a small French market town.
Not far off, the life-size figure of a little boy, wearing a dress in the Edwardian manner, rests smilingly beside a cross on a grave. He is little Humphrey Jervis-White-Jervis of Freston Hall, a member of a family with a rather unusual triple-barreled surname, who died at the age of 4 in 1900. He had a younger sister who was born the same year that he died. Her memorial is three along from his, but very modern; incredibly, she did not die until the mid-1990s.
St Peter was a ruined shell by the 19th century. One imagines the storms blowing in up the Orwell each successive winter, gradually smoothing and reducing its ragged flintwork, until nothing would remain. However, the Anglican revival prompted by the Oxford Movement saw its restoration in 1875 by the local architect R.T. Orr. He sensitively rescued the 15th century tower, as well as several windows, including the 14th century east window. You can see Orr's plans on display inside, beneath the tower.
The medieval font survives, but that's about all. Given that the rest of the interior is entirely Victorian, it is beautifully atmospheric, with that haunting feeling you get of the people who worshipped here when it was renewed now being just out of reach. They have left their memorials behind, and the best is a figure of St Christopher by the William Morris workshop. A curious survival of the past is the enamelled sign explaining the significance of Good Friday, which was propped up beneath the tower."
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