The Bells of Acle, Norfolk

Описание: Acle is a busy little town on the edge of the Broads, and its church is a substantial aisleless building set on a slight rise beside the main street. Its pretty turreted round tower with an octagonal bell stage was perhaps all built in one go in the 13th Century, the battlement stage being added in the 15th Century. That there was a Norman church here once is shown by the doorway fragments built into the roodstair turret, beside which a low side window is set in an ogee-arched alcove. Diocesan surveyor Richard Phipson led the 1860s restoration, though the chancel was seen to by Ewan Christian in the first years of the 20th Century, its sombre crispness providing the one jarring note. But the nave is pleasingly thatched, and all in all this building has perhaps more the feel of a country church than of an urban one.

You step down into an interior which Phipson restored neatly but not overwhelmingly, and the first sight is of Acle's great treasure, its 15th Century font. Curiously, the dedicatory inscription tells us that it was donated in 1410, but does not tell us the name of the donor. Four of the eight panels contain symbols of the four evangelists. Of the other four panels two contain angels, one holding a shield with the Instruments of the Passion, the other with a shield of the Holy Trinity. The other two panels are remarkable in their way, and both rare survivals. One is of the Holy Trinity depicted as God the Father sitting on a throne, holding the crucified Christ between his knees while the dove of the Holy Spirit descends. God's face has been smashed, probably by 16th Century Anglican iconoclasts. The current face is a later restoration. The stone cross still has the fixings for the body of Christ, which may have been made of wood or metal. On the other side of the font is a Pieta, Mary weeping with her dead Son on her lap. This image has also had its faces smashed out. This font was an act of Catholic catechesis. It depicts images that are at once devotional and instructional, allowing the people to both use it as a focus for prayer, but also to form an understanding of doctrine. For this above all, it was broken and hidden from view. The whole piece is a wonder, particularly since it retains much of its original colour.

Turning east, Acle's screen is intricate and lovely, the narrow chancel arch making it taller than it is wide. The dado panels are painted in familiar reds and greens, and stencilled with monograms of St Edmund, an E interspliced with the martyr king's arrows. A modern rood group sits above the screen, but how elegant the whole thing must have looked in medieval times with its rood loft thrusting forward and running the full width of the nave! There were stairways to the loft on both sides, and as previously mentioned the external stairwell survives on the south side. On the north side the space has been replaced by a window.

Stepping through into the chancel, you can see the other great treasure of the building. This is a large graffito scrawled on to the north wall. It was written during a time of pestilence, and it was uncovered in the early 20th century, but for many years it had to be covered to stop it fading. It has now been restored, and is protected behind glass. It is written in Latin, and is incomplete, because a later window punched through part of it. In translation, it is at once a hopeless cry for help and a call for prayer, an anguished reflection on the prevailing circumstances:

Oh lamentable death, how many dost thou cast into the pit!
Anon the infants fade away, and of the aged death makes an end.
Now these, now those, thou ravagest, O death on every side;
Those that wear horns or veils, fate spareth not.
Therefore, while in the world the brute beast plague rages hour by hour,
With prayer and with remembrance deplore death's deadliness.

The round tower holds a ring of six bells. Uniquely, the bell frame stretches down to the ground floor ringing chamber and is almost completely detached from the tower around it. As a result, the clapper knock is magnified and is very off putting when ringing, which is a real shame as they would otherwise be a very good six. Featuring our little moment of surprise! The clips in this video were taken during our summer tour to Norfolk in 2022.