St Andrew, Field Dalling

Time passes faster than you'd wish, and it was nearly twenty years since I'd last visited Field Dalling. The church is a handsome structure set in a large churchyard, making it lord of all it surveys. The tower is early 14th Century, the nave and chancel from a century later, and when you see that the tower is out of alignment with the nave you are bound to conclude that a rebuilding of the tower was intended, but didn't happen before the Reformation intervened. This is a large church with a wide north aisle, and there was a considerable 19th Century restoration, but you step into a building entirely rural in feel. I mention my previous visit because when I last came here the church was slowly being rescued from a period of neglect, and it was pleasing to find it looking so lovely on this day in April 2022.

The font, which stands prominently at the west end of the nave, is an interesting one of the 15th Century, with some of the panels depicting sacred monograms. Pevsner thought it drastically recut, which may be so but it is hard to see that anything on it wasn't there before. In any case, it has similarities with the font at nearby Bale, which may also be recut I suppose. Roughly contemporary with it are some surviving glass figures reset in the upper lights on the north side. Among them are St Andrew and St Cecilia. From a different age and theology come the rustic old box pews in the aisle opposite.

The 19th Century restoration came early here, for the 1860s brought a series of windows by William Warrington. One tells the story of the Good Samaritan, and the other depicts the Crucifixion flanked by the Parable of the Sower and Boaz watching Ruth gleaning in the fields. Warrington's familiar intense colours impart their character to the chancel. For the locals of the time, who would have known these stories well but never have seen them illustrated before, they must have seemed wonderful.

Simon Knott, May 2022

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