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LANGFORD STANFORD TOTTINGTON WEST TOFTS
St Mary, West Tofts
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St Mary,
West Tofts West
Tofts church is one of the four churches of
the Norfolk Battle Training Area and can't
generally be accessed by the public, but if that ever changed it would receive
plenty of visitors. This extraordinary building would be
the focus of pilgrimages by church crawlers, Pugin fans
and casual visitors who just wanted to gawp in amazement.
In the second half of the 19th Century, a typical rural
medieval church was turned into a Gothic fantasy by
Augustus Welby Pugin at the expense of the Sutton family
of Lynford Hall. They presented to the living, and
Augustus Sutton was at once rector and resident
millionaire. From the outside, the massing of spaces
appears complex, because the chancel and north aisle are
so much bigger and taller than the nave. As Pevsner
observed, they were built on a remarkably ambitious
scale. In addition, a half-timbered extension on the
north side of the chancel lends an air of fantasy. The
sanctus bell turret at the west end of the nave creates
the illusion of two separate churches close together. You step into a clean,
bright space. After thirty years, the church was returned
to use of a kind in the late 1980s. Turning east, you see
the roodscreen which formed the centrepiece of the Pugin
exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the
1990s. The space is enhanced by the removal of pews and
their replacement with simple chairs. It also sets in
relief the beautiful parclose screen to the chapel in the
north aisle, also Pugin's work. This chapel is designed
as if it was a chantry, and contains another tomb in a
recess, this time of Jane Mary Sutton. it is as if the
Reformation had never happened, which is precisely what
Pugin hoped and intended. You step through the wrought
iron gate and it is a bit like coming across the Albert
Memorial in a junk shop. The walls and roof of the chapel
are highly carved and decorated. In the chancel, Pugin
decorated the walls with stencilling and set an ornate
reredos beneath the east window. Sadly, all the coloured
glass beneath the top lights has now gone, but the
stencilling is a rare survival, since so much of this
kind of thing in the real world was destroyed in the
1950s and 1960s. Simon Knott, May 2004, revised December 2022 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter. an introduction to the churches of the Norfolk battle training area |
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