What a truly gorgeous day today despite the incredible chill in the air. After a quick walk around Tunstall village getting a few more pictures of cute cottages I've admired while I've been here and which just happened to be across the street from the bus stop, Teddy and I went to Snape Malting which is only a 7 minute bus ride from Tunstall.
As you may remember from an earlier post of mine Snape Malting is a charming arts/residential and commercial complex of refurbished 19th Century buildings where you can find great restaurants, a fabulous music hall, a music/theatre school, art galleries and lots of lovely condominiums as well as great walking and hiking paths for the nature lovers.
Teddy and I walked along the river path at first taking in the sights and enjoying the fresh air. We met a nice women walking her dog Felice who hit it off with Teddy right away and for about a half hour as we travled along the well worn walking path they frolicked and played and even went down to the water's edge and got socking wet in the marshes. Felice's mother is a professional singer from France who came to England about 23 years ago as an au pair and met her now English husband less than a month after being here. The family she was working for introduced her to one of the man who was a friend of theirs and I'm sure much to their dismay, they fell in love and were married pretty quickly and so she ended up only being their au pair for about a month. Threse and I chatted about the arts and her husband's work as a set designer for TV and Film. They were living and working in France for years but about 6 months ago moved to Tunstall. They actually live across the street from where Teddy and I pick up the bus.
We left Therse and Felice as they were heading home soon after the walk and Teddy and I still had the whole other half of the river to see as well as Ilken which is a tiny, tiny village about two miles down the walking path along the river. The walk was so beautiful and Teddy particularly enjoyed it because he was allowed for almost two full hours to roam free with out being tethered to me by his leash. He ran, jumped and flocked all over the place and only when we saw a horse in the distance as we were heading to see the church in Ilken did I put him on his leash to make sure he didn't scare the horse and get kicked in the head or something. As it was he'd already scared off a beautiful white bird that was enjoying a relaxing moment in the sun before Teddy ran at him. As you can see from the picture I took the bird is flying away as Teddy, whose head is visible in the middle of the right side is heading right for him.
Iken is a small village and civil parish in the marshlands
of the English county of Suffolk. It is near the estuary of the River Alde on the North Sea
coast and is located south east of Snape and due north of Orford. The Anchorage, formerly an island in what was a marsh at the
edge of the estuary, is the most likely site of Saint Botolph's Abbey, Ikenhoe.
During excavations in 1977 Dr Stanley West discovered part of a large stone
Saxon cross incorporated into the wall of the Church tower. The Cross was
carved with the heads of dogs and wolves, symbols which were traditionally
recognised as St Botolph's emblems during the Middle Ages and therefore it is
thought that the cross may originally have been a memorial to him.
On the same Suffolkchurches.com web site that I found
information on St. Peter’s in Blaxhall and St. Michael’s in Tunstall the
following was said about St. Botolph’s: “Iken is one of those fabulous spots
that some people think of as their favourite Suffolk place. Others come across
it by accident, as if it were a happy secret. And there must be many people, I
suppose, who do not even know that it exists. The little thatched church on its
mound jutting out into the wide River Alde is part of the panoply of Suffolk
mysticism, an element in an ancient story of the birth of England, of grey
mists and sad, crying wading birds swinging low over the mudflats, as if this
were a piece of Benjamin Britten's chamber music made flesh. As you may guess,
it is a place about which it is easy to wax lyrical.
About a mile from the church, on the Snape to Orford road, a
sign reads St Botolph's Church Iken Welcomes Pilgrims. Well, what more could
you ask of any church?
I hope I can begin to convey an impression of what this
place is like. Iken, pronounced eye-k'n, is one of Suffolk's most extraordinary
places, and anyone who has ever been here will never forget it. Here, the River
Alde snakes through mudflats and around islands; the reed beds shiver and flow
in the silence, and the avocet and curlew cry out in their isolation. As the
seasons turn, and even as the day passes, it can seem different. Light plays
exquisitely on the silver water, or the wind comes from far away, and on a cold
winter's afternoon there are few places I'd rather be.
It is an ancient site. Well, that's easy to say, of course,
and true of many churches. But the site of St Botolph really is ancient; you
are looking at a place where there has been a church for almost 1350 years.
This is almost certainly the spot where St Botolph came ashore in AD 654, and
founded his monastery. Some people will claim the same honour for Boston in
Lincolnshire, but don't listen to them. This place was then Icanho, and St
Botolph and his monks set out across east Suffolk to evangelise the pagans
under the direction of Felix, first Bishop of East Anglia, from his Cathedral
at Dumnoc, probably Walton Castle. Botolph died at or near Burgh, where he was
buried, probably in an attempt to exorcise evil spirits; the corpse was later
translated to Bury, where the monks knew a pilgrimage opportunity when they saw
one.
The church as we see it today is in three parts. The most ancient bit is the nave, albeit restored; it dates from before 1200. The chancel, like all others in England, fell into disuse after the reformation. By the 18th century it was ruinous, and was demolished and rebuilt in 1853. The tower is a good one of the mid-15th century, very much in the Suffolk style.
The church sits in its pretty churchyard across a private
road; this caused a considerable problem a few years ago, as we shall see. The
funny thing is that, although this churchyard is surrounded on three sides by
the marshes, and the river spools around it like a cord of mercury, the Alde
still has six miles to go to reach the open sea from here. A mile to the east,
it reaches Aldeburgh. In St Botolph's day, this was the river mouth, but now
the river turns back inland, and heads south. As if this wasn't contrary
enough, it changes its name to the Ore.
. This is a secret world, full of hidden creeks and inlets.
About twice a year, the local papers report that coastguards have caught boats
on this river attempting to avoid duty by running tobacco or alcohol ashore.
Low benches line the north and south walls. To the west is the great font, one
of the best in the East Anglian style. The angels that alternate with the
evangelistic symbols carry the instruments of the Passion. The walls to north
and south are blackened, calcified; the plaster has almost all gone, and we are
left with the rubble core, common to all Suffolk churches, but normally hidden.
What happened here?
On the afternoon of the 4th April, 1968, a gardener clearing
the churchyard lit a bonfire to burn rubbish. Sparks from it caught the
thatched roof of the nave, and within minutes the whole place was alight. In
this remote spot there was no prospect of a speedy rescue, and the church
completely burned out, leaving a shell. It took twenty years for repairs to be
completed to the extent you find them today, because a dispute over access
meant that materials had to be carried by hand from the road; vehicles were not
allowed through into the churchyard. First, the chancel was restored for use as
the parish church. A rather ill-fitting partition separated it from the ruins.
Later, a roof was put on the nave, and the font (which had been removed to
protect it from the elements) was returned. But the interior of the nave could
not be protected, and for a decade or more it was exposed to the Suffolk
winters. And that is how you find it today.
On the south wall is the war memorial. It is stunning to
realise that this tiny hamlet lost ten men in the First World War. There can
barely be that many men living in the whole parish today. And that's where we
come to the most interesting thing of all about Iken, for the large object by
the font is nothing other than part of a Saxon cross, discovered in the
superstructure of the tower when it was restored. It is the bottom 1.5 metres
of a cross that must have been about 3 metres high, and the tenon that
connected it to the crossbar survives. It probably dates from the 9th century,
and may have been raised on the site as a commemoration after the Vikings had
destroyed the original monastery. The most interesting side faces the wall,
unfortunately: a curled dragon bites his own tail, but keeps his beady eye on
you."
Information from the internet on St. Botolph: Botwulf of Thorney (also called Botolph,
Botulph or Botulf; died around 680) was an English abbot and saint. He is the
patron saint of travellers and the various aspects of farming. His feast day is
celebrated either on 17 June (in England) or 25 June (in Scotland), and his
translation falls on 1 December.
Little is known about Botwulf's life, other than doubtful
details in a surviving account written four hundred years after his death by
the 11th-century monk Folcard. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records for the year
6531: The Middle Angles, under earldorman Peada, received the true faith. King
Anna was killed and Botulf began to build the church at Ikanho. Icanho, which
means 'ox hill', has now been identified as Iken, which is located by the
estuary of the Alde in the East Anglian county of Suffolk: a church remains on
top of an isolated hill in the parish.2 The Life of St Ceolfrith, written
around the time of Bede by an unknown author, mentions an abbot named Botolphus
in East Anglia, "a man of remarkable life and learning, full of the grace
of the Holy Spirit".3
Botwulf is supposed to have been buried at his foundation of
Icanho. In 970, Edgar I of England gave permission for Botwulf's remains to be
transferred to Burgh, near Woodbridge, where they remained for some fifty years
before being transferred to their own tomb at the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, on
the instructions of Cnut. The saint's relics were later transferred, along with
those of his brother Adulf, to Thorney Abbey, although his head was transferred
to Ely Cathedral and other portions to Westminster Abbey and other houses.
