HERITAGE STATEMENT ST PETERS CHURCH THETFORD For THETFORD COUNCIL

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Of the early medieval church of St Peter’s we know very little, but it does stand at an important and very early east/west – north/south crossing and adjacent to what was the medieval Manor house, now King’s House. According to the 18 th Century historian, Francis Blomefield, the 2 nd Earl Warren, Thetford’s feudal Lord, gave St Peter’s Church to the Cluniac Priory at Lewes, with whom it continued until the dissolution. It is quite possible that St Peter’s Church was originally built by the Manorial Lord as a private chapel. It then became a parish church at a later date. By this time, land on the north side was occupied. Perhaps this goes some way to explain why it has such a very small churchyard. In 1291 a list of churches (numbering about 8,500 in England), was complied for taxation. It is known as the “Taxation of Pope Nicholas VI”. Five of Thetford’s churches are listed: St Mary, St Nicholas, St Cuthbert, St Giles and St Edmund. Unfortunately St Peter’s is not amongst them. Was it then either too small or poor to be taxed at this time? However, St Peter’s Church, along with eleven other local churches, does appear the following century when in 1368 an inventory of church goods in the Archdeaconry of Norwich was made. It lists the various sacred vessels, objects and garments that were used at the time. The first description of St Peter’s Church, is that given in the early years of the 18 th Century, when the historian the Reverend Francis Blomefield recorded something of the church for his history of Thetford published in 1739. He wrote, “The Head Church of the three” .. “the present building is of Freestone and Black Flint, and by the appearance of it, don’t seem to exceed the time of Edward III, (1327-77) it hath six bells in a square tower, so cracked it seems very weak; the Nave, North Isles, and two chapels are leaded, but the chancel is tiled. The plan of the church – chancel, nave with north aisle and western tower is Early English (13 th Century). Blomefield’s contemporary, the local historian, Thomas Martin, also described St Peter’s church for his history of Thetford published posthumously in 1779. “It is built of free-stone and flint, whence it has the vulgar name of “Black Church”. It consists of a chancel, nave, and two aisles, the chancel tiled, the rest leaded. Its square west tower built on arches which open on the north and south sides is much cracked, and contains six bells. <strong>For</strong>tunately, not only do we have this description from Martin but perhaps even more interestingly, a drawing he made of the church, somewhere about the middle of the 18 th Century.
How much this drawing of St Peter’s Church differed from the church that stood there, say two centuries earlier, we can not be sure. The west tower is there as described, “built on arches” and Blomefield mentioned two chapels. And at the east end, on the south side, is a feature known to date from the early years of the 16 th Century. This is a chantry chapel endowed by William Tyllys, a gentleman landowner of the town, and was dedicated to St Katherine. William Tyllys was buried in the chapel in 1501. From the moment of William Tyllys’s death, a trental – a series of masses would have been celebrated over his body for the next thirty days. This, of course, was before the Reformation. The whole church was then a wonderful scene of colour, full of painted images and ornaments, stained glass windows and lighted candles. The chancel separated from the nave by a decorated screen. Stairs, of which there is still some evidence, led to the roofloft where the Holy Rood or Cross was in full view above the chancel screen. In 1511 Robert Love, who was Mayor of Thetford in 1506, gave 40s. to the rood-loft, most likely for the supply of lights or candles. Before the Reformation, at the east end of the middle aisle, there was also another chapel, as described by Blomefield. It was dedicated to St Anne, “in which there was a gild, to the honour of that saint”. In 1483 Thomas Reynberd was buried in this chapel and gave a sum of money to new glaze the windows, for painting St Paul’s tabernacle’ – a tabernacle is a niche in an interior wall displaying the image of a saint. Money was also given to sustain the religious Gild of St Anne. Chantry chapels and religious guilds were dissolved in 1547, in the first year of the reign of Edward VI, when throughout the Kingdom, the so-called Reformation swept away the images, colour, richness and ritual of the Roman Church that had been a way of life for centuries. Six years later, however, after the catholic Mary was crowned, the old practices returned and some of the artefacts previously removed from the church, may well have returned to their rightful place for a time. But it was a short-lived change of order, when two years later, Mary’s Protestant halfsister Elizabeth was crowned Queen. All this religious upheaval, of course, made a difference to the appearance and fabric of the parish church. From the reign of Elizabeth, the parish had an important administrative role in local government as Church and parish now took on many new secular functions and responsibilities that included the care of the poor, previously in the care of the numerous monastic orders. And at some time soon after the Reformation, the Chapel of St Catherin became the Church Vestry – where those elected officers, the churchwardens and overseers, responsible for the government of the parish would meet to conduct their business. In the early years of the 17 th Century many of the communal events that formed an important part of the pre-Reformation Church continued to be held in the churchyard. Church ales (to raise money for church funds) and usually held on the feast day of the church dedication (St Peter’s 29 th June), rogationtide when the parish boundary was walked (Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday preceding Ascension Day – usually in May), plays and other ceremonies survived at least until the 1640s when Civil War brought more changes, not only to religious doctrine but the fabric and interior of the church. What icons and decorations escaped the Reformation, were destroyed by Puritan seal. Moreover, Alan Crosby, in his history of Thetford published in 1986, tells us that Thetford was an assembly point for soldiers before they headed westwards to join the Parliamentarian armies. And in 1657, the power of the Anglian Church in Thetford was reduced when the three parishes were consolidated into one meeting place, St Peter’s Church. However, normality returned and a new order of worship after the Restoration in 1660. The surviving parish registers date back to the middle of the 17 th Century. We know from both Blomefield’s and Martin’s descriptions of St Peter’s Church that the tower was in poor condition before the middle of the 18 th century. Even so, money was still being spent on new bells. In 1747, £9.7s. was paid for casting a forth bell and a further 18s. 4d was paid to
Page 1 and 2: HERITAGE STATEMENT ST PETERS CHURCH
Page 3 and 4: 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 St Peters Chur
Page 5 and 6: The fortunes of the town and number
Page 7: As noted, the population quadrupled
Page 11 and 12: We know from the 1851 Ecclesiastica
Page 13 and 14: the Nave 8 attributed to G.B.Burrel
Page 15 and 16: and the decline of Thetford in nati
Page 17 and 18: The phase one works which constitut
Page 19 and 20: The need to remove the pews and the
Page 21 and 22: introductions. They are as describe
Page 23: The justification for direct connec

HERITAGE STATEMENT ST PETERS CHURCH THETFORD For THETFORD COUNCIL

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?