Clare, Suffolk - Parish Church of St Peter & St Paul - postcard

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  The Parish Church of St Peter and St. Paul, Clare, Suffolk
• Publisher:  the Church (Thought Factory printers)
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Clare is a small town on the north bank of the River Stour in Suffolk, England. Clare is 14 miles (23 km) from Bury St Edmunds and 9 miles (14 km) from Sudbury. It lies in the ""South and Heart of Suffolk"".^[1] As a cloth town, it is one of Suffolk's ""threads"".^[2] Clare won is Village of the Year in 2010^[3] and has Anglia in Bloom award for Best Large Village 2011 for its floral displays in 2011.

It has a cultural exchange relationship with Chatillon-sur-Indre. Clare and its vicinity reveals evidence of man's long habitation throughout prehistory. The historical record demonstrates a community which changes and yet persists across centuries, from the Norman Conquest through religious strife, agricultural upheaval and industrial revolution to the present day.

The town hosts Stour Valley Community School, one of the very first free schools established by the government,^[4] opened in September 2011.

As part of the Heritage Lottery Funded Managing a Masterpiece^[5] scheme, in April and May 2011 Access Cambridge Archaeology (ACA)^[6] gave residents, school pupils and members of the public the chance to carry out their own small archaeological 'test pit' excavations throughout Clare to find out how the town developed over hundreds - even thousands - of years in the past. Early results indicate the presence of Saxon pottery across many sites - the first evidence of Clare's importance before the Normans. Further excavations within the Castle grounds took place in 2013: the report will be published next year. The finding of several human remains suggest a cemetery was located there, before the castle's construction.

 Peter and St Paul's Church, Clare is a Grade I listed parish church in the Church of England^[1] in Clare, Suffolk.

This parish church is one of the largest and most beautiful in East Anglia: ""A large and handsome church...within a spacious churchyard.""^[2] Simon Jenkins includes it in his 'England's Thousand Best Churches'.^[3] It is principally of the 14th and early 15th century, with 13th century work in the west tower, in the perpendicular style. The list of past priests goes back to 1307.^[4] ""The tower is unfortunately a little short for the church.....all the windows of the aisles and clerestory are slender and closely set, the effect has the same erectness as Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford and St Peter and St Paul's Church, Lavenham. The remodelling of the interior made it very airy.""^[5] 'Seen from any angle it floats on the skyline like a great ship, with a small tower for a fo'c'stle and two turrets for masts.....The interior is ablaze with light.'^[6]

The church possesses a late C15 brass lectern in the form of an eagle with three dogs as feet rather than lions; this may have served as a collection-box, money posted at the beak exiting at the tail. There are two fine private pews, one with the emblems of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, the other an ostentatious Stuart gallery pew with scroll-sided poppyheads ""so like those at Little Thurlow that they may have been carved by the same man"".^[7] In the chancel there are rare Jacobean carved choir stalls. The motto above the sundial over the south porch reads: 'Go about your business', not a mercantile admonition but a peremptory version of St Paul's advice: ""For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies"".^[8] Around the doorway may be seen carved ten faces of the Green Man, a somewhat pagan image to be seen on a church, but widely used across Christian Europe.

The greatest disaster to befall the church was the visit of William Dowsing in 1643. The Puritan Parliament decreed the demolition of altars, removal of candlesticks, and defacement of pictures and images. 'Basher' Dowsing, a fanatical anti-Romanist, was appointed as 'Parliamentary Visitor for the East Anglian counties for demolishing the superstitious pictures and ornaments of churches'. 'Cromwell's iconoclast'^[9] kept a journal of his visits. On 6 January 1644, he visited six churches, including Haverhill. As for Clare, he wrote: ""We brake down 1000 pictures superstitious: I brake down 200; 3 of God the Father, and 3 of Christ, and of the Holy Lamb, and 3 of the Holy Ghost like a Dove with Wings; and the Twelve Apostles were carved in wood, on top of the Roof, which we gave order to take down; and 20 Cherubim to be taken down; and the Sun and the Moon in the East window, by the King's Arms to be taken down"". Bullet holes in the roof suggest one inaccurate method; the rest being done with arrows, stones, poles and whitewash. The Sun and Moon still survive.^[10]

type=printed

city/ region=clare

period=post-war (1945-present)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=continental/ modern (150x100 mm)