Travelling up the Suffolk coast recently on our way to visit
friends, we stopped off to take a look at Covehithe, a small settlement just
north of Southwold.
Apparently Covehithe has suffered the highest level of coastal
erosion of any place in England, losing some 60 feet of land in one year alone in the
19th Century, and experiencing a retreat of some 500 metres between the 1830’s
and 2001. Today it is no longer possible
to walk down to the beach, which was a disappointment to Rendle the Lurcher,
who enjoys seaside walks. Nonetheless we were able to spend a happy half hour
or so looking at the extraordinary church of St Andrew, which is effectively a
church within a church.
The church that is in use today is surrounded by the ruins
of an earlier church, which was built in late mediaeval times. The substantial and clearly impressive original,
built by a donor, was probably always too large for the community it was
designed to serve. In 1672 the diocese
gave permission to pull down all but the tower, sell the materials that could
not be re-used, and build a smaller church within the shell.
The iconoclast, Dowsing, had a good go at the original
church in 1643, and the fifteenth century font, now in the new church, is sadly
damaged. However Mortlock quotes Dowsing
complaining in his journal: ‘We could not reach (the roof), neither would they
help us raise the ladders’. Sadly that
roof, saved from desecration, is long
gone today.
Mortlock describes the new church as ‘simple and homely’ ‘with
‘its thatched roof (it) snuggles up against the east wall of the tower.’ The simple Stuart table that serves as an
altar is probably cotemporaneous with the commissioning of the new building.
The day we visited it was warm but and breezy with a mixture of blue sky and rather threatening cloud. The ruins, set against the sky, looked suitably stark and romantic. The churchyard was
grassy and pleasant to wander in. Our visit to Covehithe was an interesting interlude
on our way up the Suffolk coast.
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