Thursday 16 July 2009

Thursday.


Ann about to enter Bildeston Church, yesterday morning.
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7 comments:

Crowbard said...

Is that St Mary Magdalene? It has a very pretty clerestory, and I love the flint infill patterns in the perpendicular style. Didn't their tower collapse in the mid 1970's? I believe it now has a very slender spire that looks a little bit lost atop such grand architecture.

Unknown said...

Yes. In 1975, I think. It's quite a story. Cracks had been noticed in the tower, and two workment were inside the tower inspecting it, when the tower 'groaned'. The workmen got out with only minutes to spare before the whole of the upper part of the tower slid down in ruins. It has been replaced with a wooden superstructure, and a bodkin of a spire. Sic transit gloria mundi. Not quite, but it does look a little odd and unbalanced to my eyes.
Regards,Mike.

Nea said...

I like the way you've caught Ann swishing forward.

Unknown said...

Yes. She is 'bustling' into the Church.

Unknown said...

Hi, Crowbard. The flint infill is usually known (in this area at least) as flushwork.

Crowbard said...

Do you know if the flint was deliberately knapped to give a flush finish or do the masons simply select from naturally occurring snapped flint nodules and arrange them flat face outwards? I suspect you'd need one heck of a battering ram to penetrate cemented flint walls... and probably suction-cups to scale one.

Unknown said...

I think the flint nodule was knapped to give a flat face, and then knapped on the edges of the flat to give the required shape to the flat area. There is a house on the seaward side of the High Street in Lowestoft, the face of which is made of flat flint squares, edge to edge. It is dated 1580, and is as square, sharp and flat as the day it was made. It is a long lasting, hard wearing material is flint.