The shrinking village of Kettlebaston
Kettlebaston is a village and a civil parish with just over 30 inhabitants located around 3 miles (5 km) east of Lavenham. From the 2011 Census the population of the village was not maintained and is now included in the civil parish of Chelsworth.
Once in an area of great wealth, the demise of the mediaeval wool trade was indirectly the saving of the village, (as we know it today), since the locals were unable to afford the expense of upgrading their houses with the latest architectural fashions. The number of timber-framed houses slowly declined over the years, as did the population - from over 200 at its peak, to the point when the village was on the brink of extinction. By the 1960s, with the road no more than an unmade track, and no electricity or mains water supplies, (it still has no gas or main drains), Kettlebaston was barely standing. In the "Spotlight On The Suffolk Scene" article, of the Chronicle & Mercury in June 1949, it was noted that a great many houses were category five - derelict, and ready for demolition. However, it survived, albeit as avery small hamlet still. The existing few houses are beautifully maintained and there is a magnificent church as well.
The village sign, showing signs of its age.
The village sign, bearing two crossed sceptres topped with doves, was erected to mark the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. It also commemorates that, in 1445, Henry VI granted the manor of Kettlebaston to William de la Pole, 1st Marquess of Suffolk, in return for the service of carrying a golden sceptre at the coronation of all the future Kings of England, and an ivory sceptre to carry at the coronation of Margaret of Anjou, and all future Queens. This honour continued until Henry VIII resumed the manor, although it was later regranted it was without the royal service. The full story behind the sign is HERE.
This beautifully adorned cottage was the first house I saw as I entered the village
As the agricultural workers left the land in search of other jobs, due to the increased mechanisation of farm work, "outsiders" discovered the secluded beauty of the rural Suffolk countryside, and a new age dawned. The tiny workmen's cottages, which once housed huge families - and some stock and chickens according to local accounts - were lovingly renovated and converted, and the village was reborn, and went on to proudly win Babergh Best Kept Village, and runner up in the Suffolk Community Council Best Kept Village Competition, in 1989.
The current village has no shop, school, or pub. In the past it at least had a school!. A plaque on the old National School House beside the drive to the churchyard announces that it was erected in 1838. Its first stone was laid on a Monday in September by Lady Pocklington. Mrs. Beachcroft (the Lady of the Manor) gave £10, also a grant of land valued at £10 and an annual subscription from herself and her nephew (Mr. T. Beachcroft of Wiston Hall) of £2 towards this School.
The following is taken from that brilliant site "Suffolk Churches".
In 1963, in the thirty-third year of his incumbency as Rector of the parish of Kettlebaston, Father Harold Clear Butler sent a letter to a friend. "You are right,"he wrote. "There is no congregation any more." In failing health, he relied on the family of a vicar who had retired nearby to carry out the ceremonies of Easter week that year. In 1964, Father Butler himself retired, and an extraordinary episode in the history of the Anglo-Catholic movement in Suffolk came to an end.
There may have been no congregation, but St Mary at Kettlebaston was a shrine, to which people made pilgrimages from all over England. Here was the liturgically highest of all Suffolk's Anglican churches, where Father Butler said the Roman Mass every day, celebrated High Mass and Benediction on Sunday, dispensed with churchwardens, flouted the authority of the Anglican diocese by tearing down state notices put up in the porch, refused to keep registers, and even, as an extreme, ignored the office of the local Archdeacon of Sudbury. An entry from the otherwise empty registers for October 2nd 1933 reads Visitation of Archdeacon of Sudbury. Abortive. Archdeacon, finding no churchwardens present, rode off on his High Horse!
Father Butler came to this parish when the Anglo-Catholic movement was at its height, and survived into a poorly old age as it retreated, leaving him high and dry. But not for one moment did he ever compromise.
Kettlebaston church is not just remote liturgically. You set off from the vicinity of Hadleigh, finding your way to the back of beyond at Brent Eleigh - and then beyond the back of beyond, up the winding roads that climb into the hills above Preston. Somewhere here, two narrow lanes head north. One will take you to Thorpe Morieux, and one to Kettlebaston, but I can never be sure which is which, or even if they are always in the same place. Finding your way to this, one of the most remote of all Suffolk villages, can be like finding your way into Narnia. Once in the village, you find the church surrounded by a high yew hedge, through which a passage conducts a path into the graveyard. On a buttress, a statue of the Coronation of the Queen of Heaven sits behind a grill. It is a copy of an alabaster found under the floorboards during the 1860s restoration. The original is now in the British Museum.
One Anglo-catholic tradition that has not been lost here is that the church should always be open, always be welcoming. You enter through the small porch, perhaps not fully prepared for the wonders that await. The nave you step into is light, clean and well-cared for. There is no coloured glass, no heavy benches, no tiles. The brick floor and simple wooden chairs seem as one with the air, a perfect foil for the rugged late Norman font, and the rich view to the east, for the fixtures and fittings of the 20th Century Anglo-Catholic tradition survive here in all their splendour.
The font believed to be from about 1200
The church features one of Suffolk's finest modern rood screens, designed by Father Ernest Geldart and decorated by Patrick Osborne, and Enid Chadwick. The rood screen (also choir screen, chancel screen, or jube) is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or wrought iron. The rood screen would originally have been surmounted by a rood loft carrying the Great Rood, a sculptural representation of the Crucifixion, as below.
Blessed Virgin
Sacred Heart of Jesus
The rare Sacred Heart altar upon a Stuart Holy Table. The `Sacred Heart` is is one of the most widely practiced and well-known Roman Catholic devotions.
Regarded as a place of pilgrimage to the followers of the Anglo-Catholic movement from all over the UK, Kettlebaston was the liturgically highest of all Suffolk's Anglican churches. From 1930, until his retirement in 1964, Reverend Father Harold Clear Butler said Roman Mass every day, and celebrated High Mass and Benediction on Sundays. He also removed state notices from the porch, and refused to keep registers, or to recognise the office of the local Archdeacon of Sudbury. Despite opposition, the church finally received electric heating and lighting in 2014.
A great church to visit and which took me by surprise when I first entered it. It is full of treasures and reminders of the past controversies surrounding the many, and varied, religious practices.
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