The American link with the Suffolk village of Shelley
Shelley is a small village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Located on the west bank of the River Brett around three miles south of Hadleigh, it is part of Babergh district.
Probable built C13 with a north facing tower added C14, this little church was very obviously used by the Tylney family, who lived in the Shelley Hall nearby. It contains tombs and a chapel, all in the Tylney name.
Elizabeth Gosnold Tilney, sister of Jamestown colonist and explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, is buried at All Saints Church, Shelley. Many people who come to Shelley will do so to see Dame Margarett Tylney. Her effigy lies in a window embrasure to the west of the pulpit. She died in 1598, shortly before the Tudor dynasty ended.
Thomas Tylney, who married Elizabeth Gosnold Tylney, is also buried in Shelley church.
Her sleeping effigy was witness to a quite extraordinary event in the early years of the 21st Century. In 2003, archaeologists working in Jamestown, Virginia discovered the remains of a body which had been buried with obvious ceremony at the James Fort heritage site. There was a theory that it could be the corpse of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, a Suffolk-born adventurer who led the pioneers that established the first English colony in the New World at Jamestown in 1607. A certain amount of DNA was recovered, and the only way of establishing for certain the identity of the corpse was to find a match from a source known to be of the same family. Gosnold’s sister Elizabeth Tylney Gosnold had been buried in the vault of Shelley church, and permission was given for the vault to be opened and a DNA sample obtained.
Permission was given because of “the strength of the educational and scientific rationale presented to us by the Jamestown team”. The Victorian tiles were removed from the chancel floor, then the 18th Century bricks below them, and then the 17th Century flagstones. A small amount of DNA was obtained from the corpse of Elizabeth, and lo and behold it was a match.
A brass plaque on the chancel wall recalls the event and remembers Elizabeth - however, despite the excitement, identification of the Jamestown body still remains uncertain, as the body in All Saints’ Church – thought to be Elizabeth’s – turned out to be that of a much younger woman, possibly Anne Framlingham, who had married Philip Tylney, of Shelley Hall, in 1561 and died around 1601. It's a great story though!
North side view of Shelley church.
Another view of the front. This time with what looks like a couple sleeping rough in the porch.
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