THE TOWER AND FONT
Translations by Francis Engleheart (1963)
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5. “As the years roll round, may John’s bell resound.” Probably by John Sturdy
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6. “By thy gracious interceding, Virgin Mary, make our pleading.” This is noted as “a remarkable bell by an unknown founder” originating from London or the eastern counties.
Inside the tower is the door to the stair, and a glance upwards at the Ringers’ Chamber floor some 16 metres above your head gives an immediate impression of the tower’s great bulk. Above the Ringers’ is the Silence Chamber, a space about a metre and a half high which is there to muffle the bells for the ringers and contains the clock mechanism (electric) A chiming clock had been installed in 1689, but whether it was in the same place is not known. It is also the space in which the tower was given a steel and concrete girdle to strengthen it in 1978. Above that again are the bells, eight in all, mounted in a steel frame installed in 1956, replacing an oak frame of 1725 which was badly damaged by death watch beetle, while on the northeast corner there is a peregrine nesting box put up in 2022 when it was hoped that the then resident tiercel (young male) would find a mate and start breeding. The window above in the west doorwall, installed in 1865, is by the O’Connors and shows the Evangelists above and the virtues Faith, Hope, Mercy and Charity below. It is regarded as one of the better Victorian windows, “strong colours and good decorative glass”.​​
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The total weight of the “ring” is 4345 kilograms, one of the heaviest in Suffolk. The tower sways perceptibly when all eight bells are being rung.
The Bells. It would appear that the 14th century church had some form of bell tower, the evidence being that No.5 has a Plantagenet coin cast into it. There were five bells in 1553. The current peal, in E flat, is as follows:-
This inscription, found in the Bell Chamber, was carved by Nathaniel Bluett in 1865 who was a bell ringer at that time. Mr Bluett was a carpenter who lived in Polstead Street. His son, Arthur Bluett was one of the first to migrate from Stoke to New Zealand. Nathaniel Bluett died in 1896 at the Semer Workhouse.
The installation of a new carriage in 1956 when the bells were removed and reinstated.
The font, of which Francis Bond says “among the most magnificent examples which we possess” in his 1908 book FONTS AND FONT COVERS, can be dated between 1461 and 1483, the reign of King Edward IV, since on the east side of the base is carved his rose en soleil badge: however, it is probable that it was installed in the early part of that period. It is matched on the west side by the arms of Howard impaling Tendring, as displayed in the south porch and outside above the west door. This is a curiosity. Those arms would correctly have been used only by the Sir John Howard who married Alice de Tendring in 1398, and who died in 1437: while he may have initiated the “modernisation” of the church into the Perpendicular style of gothic architecture, he was long gone by the time the font was installed. The next Sir John, his grandson, later Duke of Norfolk, patron of the rebuilding of the church, would have been well aware of the discrepancy, and so would his stone carvers, so the blazon appears to be a deliberate “mistake”. Did that Sir John order it as a commemoration of Stoke and the Tendring Hall estate coming into the property portfolio of the Howards, and as a token of affection for his grandfather? The outstanding quality of both the font and the south doors is witness to John Howard’s wealth.
The base of the font has two octagonal stages and a top platform in the form of a cross, giving three places for the godparents and one for the priest. The octagonal basin is mounted on a shaft with eight niches with ogee canopies and a frieze of angels’ heads round the bottom: it appears that the basin is carved from a single block of stone 80cm across by 58cm thick, an astonishing feat of craftsmanship. The superb quality of that stone has allowed the sculptor to do his work in crisp detail, and they show, on the cardinal points, the emblems of the evangelists – Matthew’s angel to the west, Mark’s winged lion to the south, Luke’s winged ox to the north, and John’s eagle to the east. While there is a scroll in every panel which presumably indicates that the person depicted was authorThe significance of some religious work, the intermediate panels pose a conundrumis unexplained . There is a second angel, to the north west: in the north east there is a robed and seated figure with a baggy hood pointing at a scroll on a lectern mounted on a cranked swivelling arm, which moves in a socket on a lion’s head, and in its top left-hand corner there is a stooping bird, unfortunately headless: the southeast panel shows a curly-headed man with a sack over his shoulder pointing at a book on a lectern with books on shelves underneath, with his stick leaning against it – an itinerant preacher? and south west is another seated and robed figure with a baggy hood, and a tree to the right.: look carefully, and there is the serpent coiled within it.
The Coat of Arms of
Howard ImpalingTendring
The Edward IV Rose
The view east from the font shows clearly that the chancel is misaligned with respect to the nave. There are three explanations for this. First, that the master mason simply got it wrong: this can be dismissed at once – the skill to erect a building such as this does not get it wrong.
Second, it is said that it is to symbolise the hang of Christ’s head on the cross.
Third, in mediaeval times, without such a thing as a mariner’s compass, there was no more than a very general conception of the direction of east and west, and when laying out churches it was customary to take east as being the direction of the sun at sunrise on Easter Day, when the foundation stones of chancel and nave were laid. In the 35 days between the earliest and latest dates of Easter the direction of sunrise moves considerably, and so did the alignments of chancel, founded first, and then nave.
The chancel is misaligned with respect to the nave.