A visit to St Stephens Chapel or Chapel Barn, Bures
I am not sure when I first heard about this building, which is through a farmyard and down a track in Bures. However, having read something about it I was fascinated to gather my camera and take the trip to Bures - which is not too far away.
My first two views of the chapel
About one mile north-east of the village, down a track through Fysh House Farm, lies my objective - the Chapel of St. Stephen. Apparently, this was the private chapel of the Manor of Tany, or Tauney, and was dedicated to St. Stephen on St. Stephen's Day 1218, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This makes it the oldest building in the parish, it pre-dates the church by approximately 150 years.
There is good reason to believe that the Manor House for which the Chapel was once built, stood on the summit of Cuckoo Hill now occupied by a small grove of trees. For all houses that were of any importance, were fortified usually by a pallisade of wood with a commanding view of the open countryside.
The rear view of the chapel
Now for the story of the chapel's fame:
On Christmas Day 855, history tells us, Bishop Humbert of Elmham anointed a 14-year-old boy as King of the East Angles. The boy was Edmund, the chosen heir of King Offa, and his Coronation was documented at `Burva`.
The chronicler Galfridus de Fontibus also described the coronation as having taken place at "Bures", which is an ancient royal hill. It is the general belief that this was the lonely hilltop, where St Stephen's Chapel now stands and below is the stone at the rear of the chapel marking the supposed spot where Edmund was crowned.
Unfortunately, Edmund didn`t survive long, the invading Danes captured Edmund and held a mock trial, reviled, stripped, and scourged him because he would not renounce the Christian Faith. He only opened his lips once and that was to confess to Christ.At the end of the November day, the Danes led him out of the village of Hoxne bound him to an oak at the edge of the forest and then in a most calculated cruel way made him a target for their arrows, deliberately avoiding any vital parts.
The Danish Chief gave him one last chance to renounce his Faith, but he refused. The Danes decapitated him without mercy. Poor Bishop Humbert who had carried out the Coronation followed the same terrible fate within minutes.
When the Danes left the area, the local Christian men recovered his body and laid it to rest in a local wooden Chapel (thought to be here)
In 903, the Danish Christian King Canute transferred his body to Bury, which in time became the site of the Abbey we see today.
The interior of the chapel contains the effigies of three Earls of Oxford, the only survivors of twenty-one tombs once found at Earls Colne Priory. This priory, like many others, became ruined after the Reformation and only a shell remains today.
At least, there appear to be three: close inspection by expert eyes has suggested that they are in fact made up from pieces of seven separate monuments which were originally located at Earls Colne Priory. This was mainly due to the confusion in trying to piece together the tombs, after the destruction of the original Priory.
This chapel then fell into disuse after the Reformation. It was converted to a hospital in the plague of 1739 and later became cottages then eventually a barn, hence its local name "Chapel Barn". Glebe Terrier of 1739 reports, "Smallpox outbreak, Chapel Barn hospital full to capacity"
As the name Chapel Barn implies, this simple building resembles a barn - indeed that is what it remained as until its restoration 70 years ago. It was a barn, however, of stone, with narrow lancet windows and a steeply pitched thatched roof. Extensions in brick and timber at the west and north date from the period after the Reformation when the building became cottages.
Strangely, what looks on the outside like an agricultural outbuilding, seen inside resembles a mausoleum.
It was restored to its present condition in the 1930s by members of the Probert family and re-consecrated. Once a year each summer, a service is held in the chapel by the congregation of St Mary`s Church, Bures.
One further thing to talk about this site is that from here can be seen the Bures dragon, first recorded in 1405 by a local monk, and recounted several times thereafter. According to the account, several townsfolk claimed they saw the terrifying creature firsthand. The huge beast had a crested head, serrated teeth, and long tail. It terrorized the village, breathing fire at anything that moved and even killing a shepherd and his flock.
The town panicked. The men of the fiefdom tried to kill the dragon with arrows, but they bounced right off the monster’s hard skin. Soon, men from across the country were summoned to slay the dragon, which fled down river toward the adjacent village of Wormingford and disappeared into the marshes, never to be seen again. (Or, to hear the town of Wormingford tell it, was heroically slain there.)
While the villagers of Bures almost certainly did not witness a dragon that spring of 1405, the sighting of a scaly beast may in fact be true. The prevailing theory is that the “dragon” may have actually been a crocodile that was given to King Richard I as a gift from King Saladin during the 12th-century Crusades. The reptile would have been kept at the Tower of London in the royal menagerie but is believed to have escaped and ended up in the marshes near Bures.
In any event, the region has long associated with the medieval mythical beast. Several old churches in the area have depictions of dragons on their walls, including a 15th-century painting of the storied creature in the Wissington Church a few miles from Bures. In honor of this legendary dragon, and in celebration of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, the Bures Dragon was etched into the hill in 2012, a physical rendition of the local tale.
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