Beccles - a brief visit
Beccles town is made up of small market squares and winding streets nestled by the River Waveney. It is a town that I have heard of, but never visited. The only reason for this overnight stay was to have a base for Rosey to do part of her walk challenge.
We had booked an overnight stay in the Waveney Hotel which was beautiful, not only for the hotel itself but its gorgeous position beside the River Waveney and the spectacular church opposite. We will definitely go again!
A view of the hotel from the church grounds with the river and barges behind
My view as I sat and had breakfast.
The church of St Michael the Archangel, opposite the Hotel, is a magnificent medieval building sited on a high scarp over looking the river Waveney. It has been at the centre of the life of the town since its foundation in 1369 and is still a thriving parish church.
In 1749 Edmund Nelson, who had previously been a curate at St Michael's, married Catherine Suckling, from nearby Barsham, in St Michael's. Edmund was by then Rector of a parish in Norfolk. They became the parents of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson.`
Now, if St Michael did not have its great bell tower, it would perhaps still be famous for its south porch which dominates the whole of the south side, rising above the south aisle on two storeys. One of the biggest medieval porches in all Suffolk
We had booked an overnight stay in the Waveney Hotel which was beautiful, not only for the hotel itself but its gorgeous position beside the River Waveney and the spectacular church opposite. We will definitely go again!
My view as I sat and had breakfast.
The church of St Michael the Archangel, opposite the Hotel, is a magnificent medieval building sited on a high scarp over looking the river Waveney. It has been at the centre of the life of the town since its foundation in 1369 and is still a thriving parish church.
In 1749 Edmund Nelson, who had previously been a curate at St Michael's, married Catherine Suckling, from nearby Barsham, in St Michael's. Edmund was by then Rector of a parish in Norfolk. They became the parents of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson.`
The huge Beccles Bell Tower, viewed from the south porch of the church
St Michael’s goes way back to about 1350 and was built by the Abbott of Bury St Edmunds no less. Long before that, there was a Saxon church, probably on the same site, that served this thriving fishing port.
The church was built first, without a tower, but in the early 16th century, in a display of piety, power and civic pride, the great square belfry was built to the south east. Solid, faced in stone and lined in brick, it rises almost 100 ft above the street. The parapet was never built; the Reformation intervened. But why was it built here at all?
The obvious, and usual place, at the west end of the nave, is marshy, and the ground falls away to the river. And another reason possibly is that its actual location is grander and more prominent, set on the side of the former market place.
By the middle of the 20th Century, the parish found it difficult to afford its upkeep, and in the 1970s it was sold off to the Borough for the nominal sum of one penny.
Now, if St Michael did not have its great bell tower, it would perhaps still be famous for its south porch which dominates the whole of the south side, rising above the south aisle on two storeys. One of the biggest medieval porches in all Suffolk
The other interesting feature of the south side is rather curious. This is the small castellated porch to the chancel door. Above it, a now blocked doorway leads onto the parapet, an outdoor pulpit, apparently?
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