Blyford

All Saints

"The church was appropriated to Blythburgh Priory before the year 1200 by Ralph de Criketot. It retains some fine specimens of Norman architecture. The two doorways have stood where they are for eight hundred years, one with pillars carved with chevrons and the other with twisted columns and zig-zagging around the arch.

The rest of the church was refashioned in the 14th and 15th centuries. The mediaeval tower has a grotesque head at each corner, and three gargoyles. There are fine faces on the drip-stones of the upper windows. A fierce gargoyle looks down from the either side of the doorway, and there are lions over the west door. The font is 13th century and the sanctuary has a fine Elizabethan altar table with bulbous carved legs.

In the churchyard, depicted by a mason artist, is a memorial to a servant in husbandry, who died at the age of 21. He was a ploughman, and is depicted with a team of Suffok Punches (horses), an old wooden plough with whipple trees, and wearing a smock and characteristic hat.

Here are the words: "In memory of Samuel, son of James and Lucy Croft, May 13th 18_, aged 21.

 

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