From Woodnewton I cycled north accompanied by drifting red kites to one of the real goals of my journey, the church at Apethorpe. One of the pleasures of this part of the world is that, like much of south Cambridgeshire, east Norfolk and pretty much all of Suffolk, you are never more than a couple of miles from the next village, and I soon reached my first proper spire of the day, the church sitting beside the manor house, a war memorial forming a village cross in the street, and entered the church of St Leonard, Apethorpe.
This is an excellent church, full of interest, tightly set in its stone-walled churchyard which accentuates the height of the spire, the inner door wedged open. Best known for the Mildmay monument, which I'll come to in a moment, the most striking thing on entry, for me at least, are two tremendous windows in the south aisle, both by Christopher Whall. Each depicts three saints and commemorates two brothers of the Brassey family killed in the First World War. There is one Christopher Whall window in the whole of Suffolk. There are two here at Apethorpe.
Turning east, a faded doom painting surmounts the chancel arch, but beyond you step across the Reformation divide, for everything here was richly provided in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The chancel aisle is wider than the nave aisle, and here is the early 17th Century Mildmay memorial, one of the biggest monuments I've ever seen in an English country church. It towers some twenty feet into the air, the Mildmays asleep in bed in the middle and life-size sculptures of women representing virtues at each corner of the bed. Extraordinary. Nearby is a 15th Century memorial to a knight with a near-unvandalised Annunciation the Blessed Virgin above his head, and a sweet 19th Century memorial to a child showing him asleep in bed. But the most remarkable thing about this place is the early 17th Century English glass in the aisle east window. A most unusual date, of course, and a spectacular response to Caroline and Laudian piety, depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Day of Judgement. It must be one of the finest of its kind outside of an Oxford or Cambridge college chapel.
The east window of the chancel is also unusual, an 18th Century English representation of the Last Supper, and this period must have provided most of the money for refurnishing this place. Unfortunately, the Victorians put in big ugly pews in the nave, but the lady doing the flowers told me they are raising money to have them removed and replaced by simple wooden chairs as at Yarwell. All in all a wonderful church. Quite how Simon Jenkins only gave it one star is beyond me.
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