Church of St Michael the Archangel

Details

TL 26 SE FRAMLINGHAM CHURCH STREET (WEST SIDE)

4/37 Church of St. Michael the 7.12.66 Archangel

GV I

Parish church. C15 and C16, with fragments of C12. Nave and chancel, north and south aisles, north and south chapels, south porch and west tower. Flint and freestone with lead-covered roofs. Large square late Perpendicular tower in 3 stages, divided by string-courses; flushwork panelling on the base, and on the faces of the diagonal buttresses, which are stepped in 6 stages, 2 to each of the main stages of the tower, and surmounted by heraldic lions; a 4- light window with panel tracery to each face of the top stage. A battlemented top with pinnacles at the angles and 2 bands of flushwork below. The tower contains 8 bells, the earliest dated 1583. The nave roof has an ornamental eaves cresting, and inscriptions below the eaves copied from a Parisian church: these were added during the lace C19 restoration. 5 3-light windows with panel tracery and with flushwork panels between them to the clerestorey. The walling above in a mixture of scone blocks and flint. Parapeced aisle roofs; 2-light traceried windows with square heads to the south aisle. The chancel was lengthened and the 2 chapels built by the 3rd Duke of Norfolk circa 1550, and as a result the chancel is almost as long as the nave, and the east end of the church wider than the rest. 4 3-light windows with bar tracery to the chapels; the 6-light east window, with a row of shields below, dates from 1743. Battlemented south porch. The church has an impressive interior, with many important features and fittings. Outstanding is the nave roof, of single hammer-beam construction; the hammers are concealed behind an ornamental ribbed coving with a horizontal decorated band above; the collars are embattled and supported by solid arched braces. At the rear of the nave, the organ, built by Thamar of Peterborough in 1674 for Pembroke College, Cambridge, and presented by them to Framlingham church in 1708, was replaced on its gallery in 1970. The organ case and the complete set of painted pipes dare from 1630. The high C12 chancel arch is a survival of the earlier church, and a row of corbel-heads below the level of the present corbels supporting the aisle roofs indicate the presence of earlier aisles. In the chancel, the reredos behind the high altar has a mystical painting of the Glory, of about 1700. The north ana south chapels contain a group of important monuments to the Howards, described by Pevsner as 'one of the best series of mid-C16 Early Renaissance monuments in Englana'. The tomb-chest of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, is particularly fine, and said to rival the best French work. Details of all the monuments, and of many other features of the interior, are well set out in the booklet "The Church of Saint Michael, Framlingham' by A.J. Martin, 1978, (available in the church), ana have not been repeated here. See also the long entry for Framlingham Church in Pevsner's 'Suffolk', Buildings of England series, 2nd edition, 1974.

Listing NGR: TM2853863508

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

286315

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Martin, A J, The Church of Saint Michael Framlingham Suffolk, (1978)
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk, (1974)

End of official list entry

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