King Henry VIII. did not intend to suppress this Abbey, for the Act of 1536 stipulates that the bishops of Norwich were always to be abbots thereof, and were to maintain a small convent of a prior and twelve monks for ever. Bishop Rugg and his successors plundered the place for the adornment of Ludham Hall and Norwich Palace, and it fell utterly to ruin, so that when Bishop Jegon came to the See in 1602. he claimed £3,161 from his predecessor, one item being for "2,000 yards of wall ruinated and fallen down." Gradually the ruins, and even the bones from the tombs, were carted away, the former to repair the protective "rands" of the marshes on which the latter were scattered for top dressing. The next halting place was Ludham Church, where LUDHAM the visitors were received by the Rev. G. A. B. Boycott, CHURCH. Who informed them that he hoped to gain information rather than to impart it. Addressing the gathering, he said: The church, one of the largest and, in some ways, one of the most interesting in East Norfolk, is dedicated to St. Catherine, the virgin martyr of Alexandria, only two other churches in the diocese having a similar denomination. Its present state of excellent repair is due to the care of the Rev. J. J. Willmott. He wished to know the date of the clerestory windows, and whether the wallposts of the hammer-beam roof were cut short. as they appeared to be, to allow these windows to be inserted. Were the grotesque figures underneath the four Evangelists on the font evil spirits driven out by baptism? There is an ancient chest of the fourteenth century and an alms box, probably pre-Reformation, made from the hollow trunk of a tree, and bound with iron. The bishop's pew remained, and he desired to be told whether the figure of a hand projecting from the south wall of the nave was for the purpose of holding a taper burning before the side altar, or to serve as a guide for the rope of the sanctus bell. The chancel is older than the nave. The chief beauty of the church was the screen, which bore the inscription, "Pray for the soul of John Salmon and Cecily, his wife, that gave forty pounds, and all other benefactors. Made in the year of our Lord God, 1493." The panels were filled with representations of saints. Were they Flemish? The chancel arch is boarded in, and on the boards is a picture of the Crucifixion, and on the other side the Royal arms painted on canvas. The boards and canvas were discovered in the stairway to the rood-loft and were replaced in their present position in 1890. Returning to the launches, the journey was conRANWORTH tinued to Ranworth, on the opposite side of the river, CHURCH. and on reaching the church the party was addressed by the Rev. H. J. Enraght, who compared the present state of the building with that of a comparatively few years since. Over £4,000 had been spent in getting the church into something like order. It had been found necessary to reface the nave and repave the floor, for not many years ago grass was growing in the nave, and the walls were black with damp. All the fourteenth and fifteenth-century paving tiles which it had been possible to preserve were placed in the chancel together with others obtained from Langley. In the past the church had been despoiled of many beautiful things. The fine old double hammer-beam roof was sold in 1811 by a faculty of the Archdeacon of Norfolk when he was vicar of the parish, the lead was stripped off and sold for nearly £400, and the elaborate font cover, which was there in 1705 and of which this Society published an illustration many years ago.* disappeared about the same time. The proceeds were expended upon a new roof and wooden frames for the windows. The screen, unequalled in England for its paintings, had been whitewashed and thus protected, but it had suffered more from damp and dirt during the last sixty years than previously because, unfortunately, when the whitewash was removed, the roof, in which there were great holes ten or twelve years ago, was not mended. The loft had, most likely, been taken away in Queen Elizabeth's reign. The Illuminated Antiphoner, which had recently been discovered, proved that the present fabric was begun in 1370 and finished in 1420. The foundations of an earlier church had been found in the chancel, and the western arch was of thirteenth-century work. Two-thirds of the east window were bricked up in 1780, and most of the old beams in the chancel still had the bark upon them. The organ has an unusual position, viz., at the west end of the church; the case, all of which was of English workmanship, was one of its most expensive parts. Mr. Walter read a letter from Mr. John RANWORTH Cator, M.P., expressing regret at his inability ANTIPHONER. to be present and stating his readiness to give £50 to а fund for procuring the Antiphoner above mentioned. The Rev. H. J. Enraght, with whom we may join in the hope that some day the volume will be fully dealt with, has favoured us with (i.) a History and (ii) a Description of it adapted to these pages as follows: I. History. The MS. was bequeathed to the church of Ranworth by William Cobbe in 1478, and was in use in 1538, as proved by an obit entry of that date. The order of Henry VIII. (1541) is shown in the crossing through of the Antiphons for St. Thomas of Canterbury, and the erasion of his name from the Calendar under December 29th. Most probably it was lost to the Church under the order of Edward VI. (1549-50), and its remarkable state of preservation would suggest its subsequent home to have been in some private collection. It was bought at Sotheby's by Messrs. Ellis, of 29, New Bond Street, out of the Huth Collection on November 16th, 1911. The fact of its existence was made known to me in August * Norf. Arch., vol. v., p. 268. |