Wooden angel. Church of the Holy Trinty. Blythburgh, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom, Europe.
The parish church is dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Known as the Cathedral of the Marshes, Blythburgh was one of the earliest Christian sites in East Anglia. There was a church there in 654 to which the bodies of the East Anglian King Anna and his son, descendants of King Wehha, were brought after their deaths in battle at Bulcamp with the Mercian King Penda. At the time of the Norman Conquest Blythburgh was part of the royal estate and had one of the richest churches in Suffolk, possibly a Saxon Minster, with two daughter churches. It was probably the rich parent church that was granted by King Henry I to Augustinian canons some time between 1116 and 1147, becoming the priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A daughter church is likely to have been the predecessor of Holy Trinity. It was rebuilt in the 15th century. In the movement to dissolve the monasteries, the suppression of the priory was authorised in 1528 and it was dissolved in 1537, the reversion of the property being granted to local gentleman Sir Arthur Hopton in 1548. The church underwent a series of disasters, man-made and natural. The most dramatic of the latter variety came in August 1577, when a storm hit the area, and during morning service lightning hit the church, "cleft the door, and returning to the steeple rent the timber, [and] brake the chimes". The falling spire damaged the font and the roof (which wasn't repaired until 1782), destroying the angels in the west end bays. The door shows marks, which have the appearance of burns caused by candle flames, which the credulous associate with the devil's fingerprints. They have been associated with the 'Black Shuck' legend, which is the title of a song by the Lowestoft rock group The Darkness which mentions Blythburgh in the lyrics. During the 17th century Holy Trinity was badly damaged when Parliament set out to remove what the Puritans deemed to be superstitious ornamentation from churches; Blythburgh was assigned to William Dowsing, a local Puritan,
Size: 5000px × 3509px
Location: Church of the Holy Trinty. Blythburgh, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom, Europe.
Photo credit: © Stan Pritchard / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: angel, blythburgh, carving, church, roof, wooden
