Photographed May 2002 |
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| Memorials in villages around Bury Ampton Bradfield St. George Brettenham Cockfield (roadside) Felsham & Gedding | Great Finborough Great Whelnetham Higham Higham St. Mary's (roadside) Lavenam Rattlesden Thorpe Morieux |
When writing It was my lucky weekend, since it was June 1-2, 2002, the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II; as a result, many village churches were open that otherwise are closed. Thanks to Brigadier Denis Blomfield-Smith, Elizabeth Barber-Lomax, Sonia Halliday, Polly Buston, and Phoebe Whitton, for helping to organize my visit to Bury and the surroundings.
I visited fourteen villages and saw memorials in twelve of them. At five locations these memorials were very simple and made no link to the Middle Ages. The cross at Cockfield (below, right) echoes the Angel Hill cross in Bury; the names of dead from the second war are added on the second step of the cross. The
The most frequent means of establishing this link, found in eight of the twelve churches I saw, is the image of St. George. He appears in windows at churches listed below; those marked * are shown below.
* the church of St. Andrew in Great Finborough;
* Thorpe Morieux, where George is paired with St.Francis; and in Cavenham.
In St. Peter's Church, Ampton, a mosaic of St. George faces a mosaic of St. Christopher.
* In St. George's in Bradfield St. George a statue of the saint is paired with St. Alban in the reredos; at St. Mary's Church in Higham St.Mary;
* A three-light window at Rattlesden surrounds of St. George with the sacrifice of Isaac to the left and the story of David and Goliath on the right.
The church was locked, so I have made do by reversing this image, taken from outside, so that the saints are seen in the order in which they appear from the inside. St. George is left of center in the image and Joan of Arc (you can just barely read her name, backwards now, below the image) to far right; to the left of George is David (with his slingshot, again, name just visible beneath him). (I can't read the inscriptions in the spaces beneath Joan and David.)
The reredos is juxtaposed to a huge window showing the Crucifixion. St. George is on the left, St. Alban (an English martyr) on the right. There are four memorials in this church; the largest, easy to miss because it is so elaborately planted, is the rood screen. Among the memorials I saw iconographic complexity reaches its peak in the three-light window at Rattlesden, with its remarkable conjunction of the sacrifice of Isaac, St. George, and David and Goliath. Erected in 1920, the work honors the 26 Rattlesden men who died durin the war; next to a brass plaque listing the 26 men rests another plaque listing three men who died in World War II. Inscriptions run beneath each of the side windows. Elsewhere, memorials are less complex. At St. Peter's Church in Felsham, Higham, and St. Mary's Church in Brettenham,there are two plaques listing the war dead. Even very large ones are no longer recognized as memorials. And if they get overlooked, you can be sure people rarely notice the very commonones like these.
The single-light memorial window features St. George in a helmet surmounted by a lion, holding a Crusader's cross standard, wearing a sword, and carrying a shield (again with the Crusader'scross). A fierce dragon, mouth agape (in death throes?) lies at his feet. The inscription, "They loved not their lives unto the death," is a quotation from the Book of Revelations often understood as a reference to martyrdom: "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death" (Revelation 12:11).Nearby is a memorial plaque that gives information about the two men and names their grandfather, the donor, grandfather of Clement Beckford Bevan, also remembered in the largewindow in the Bury cathedral. 
At Thorpe Morieux, the balanced pairing of St. George and St. Francis:
Ampton
The dedication to World War I figures appears opposite St. George beneath the figure of St. Christopher. 
In the representation of the sacrifice of Isaac, an angel stays the hand of Abraham, clad in purple, who bends over Isaac's bowed body (Isaac wears red); the inscription reads: "It was counted unto him as righteousness," a quotation from St. Paul: "For Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him as righteousness" (Romans 4). Opposite, David, in a rough garment, holds a sling and faces Goliath, who (paradoxically) is dressed as a Roman knight. The inscription reads, "He will give you into our hands," a quotation from Samuel: "And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands" (17:47).
For memorials in Bury, follow this link.
