It is strange how one can live for years near to places of beauty or interest but never get around to visiting them.  There always seem to be other things to do and of course these places will always be there, won’t they? And we will always be able to get to them whenever we like – yes?  Elinor and I decided to visit one on a very warm afternoon in June this year.

Wenhaston is about ten miles from where we live, is fairly near to Southwold on the coast, and is surrounded by farms and heathland.  Not too far away is Bulcamp, the site of a battle in the year 654 between the Anglian King Anna and the Mercian King Penda.  Anna and a couple of his sons were killed during the battle.  A workhouse was built at Bulcamp in 1764 which then became a fever hospital and has now been converted into apartments.  A little bleak and isolated for my liking. There is a nice pub in Wenhaston and I think the choir I belonged to years ago performed a concert or two in the village hall. I also had to take Alice to Wenhaston once a week for guitar lessons for a while.

Elinor and I had come to see the church which is situated in the middle of the village.  It is referred to in the Domesday Book and part of it is of Saxon origin.  For many years it was looked after by Blythburgh Priory but like lots of churches in this country it suffered much during the reign of Edward VI and also during the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell.  William Dowsing‘s men visited in 1643 and according to the Wenhaston church guide book ‘did a lot of damage, breaking the stained glass, taking down the carved angels from the roof, removing the organ and the font cover, destroying the altar, hacking the pulpit about and much else besides’.  What they didn’t find was the Doom which the people of the parish had covered with whitewash many years earlier during Edward’s reign when he had demanded the destruction of all roods and the abolition of paintings and pictures in church.  For three centuries and more it stayed undiscovered and forgotten on the rood beam, whitewashed and painted over with passages from the Bible.

In 1892 the East end of the church was rebuilt.  During the dismantling of the roof the rood beam was discovered intact and to still have its original paint and gilding.  The whitewashed Doom was removed plank by plank and thrown out into the churchyard for later destruction.  Fortunately, it rained heavily during that night and in the morning the painting underneath was beginning to emerge from under the whitewash.  The whole Doom was cleaned and experts were called in to assess its provenance.  The Doom was put on display and people paid to see it; the proceeds of which helped to pay for the rebuilding of the roof and the church was then able to get even more repairs done.  The new chancel arch was too narrow for the Doom to be replaced in its old position so for a while it was put on the West wall of the church where there was a gallery.  The gallery was removed in 1927 so that the Doom could be seen more easily and sometime later the Doom was placed where it is now on the North wall.

The Doom is a representation of the Last Judgement.  It was probably painted in about 1520 or just before then, the date partly based on the style of the Virgin Mary’s bodice as depicted in the Doom. The villagers had started saving for the work to be done during the 1480’s. Dooms were usually placed on the chancel arch which separates the Nave where the common people worship – the Church Militant – and the Chancel, where the priests lead the worship – the Church Triumphant.  A rood screen was often placed at the chancel arch, which added to the seclusion of the chancel, and the sculpted or carved figures of Our Lord on the Cross with the Virgin Mary on one side and St John the Baptist on the other were placed on the top of the rood beam.  In this church the figures of the rood were attached to the Doom.  The figures have long since disappeared but their position and shape can be seen by the blank spaces on the Doom painting.

At the top of the Doom on the left is God as Christ seated on a rainbow and displaying His wounds.  At the top on the right are the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist kneeling in prayer.  (Sadly my photograph of these two latter figures wasn’t good enough to show here).

Beneath the figures of the Virgin and St John is the Archangel Michael with the Devil. The early Church adapted many pagan customs and ideas to Christian purposes in order to ease the transition from the pagan life to that of being a Christian.  One such custom was the idea of a messenger from Heaven and therefore the attributes of the Roman god Mercury were assumed by the Archangel Michael who became the guide of the dead.  Mercury weighed souls in classical mythology so now Michael holds the scales in his left hand.  His right hand holds his sword and he wears a circlet surmounted by a cross on his head.  The circlet at the time was very fashionable in Northern European and also English art.  You can see resurrected souls behind Michael and the Devil wending their way towards St Peter. The dead have arisen as naked as they were when they were created and all aged about 33, the age at which Christ was thought to have died.

The Devil is wearing ragged sleeves and trousers which, according to the guide book, suggests the outfit worn by the Devil when the Wenhaston actors visited the seaside village of Walberswick in the late 15th century.  The Walberswick churchwardens described the entertainment as the ‘Wenhaston game’.  There is a second face painted on the Devil’s belly.  This is an artistic convention often seen in late medieval painting which suggests that the Devil’s soul had been put at the service of his lower appetite and he was no better than a brute.  The Latin text says ‘N(unc) quo deest tu facias tabo amnesta – now for what is lacking may you give pardon for sin’.  This is for the benefit of these two (rather cute) little souls in the upper pan of the scales as they are weighed against the single pure soul in the lower pan.

Beneath the image of Christ are the resurrected souls appearing above ground and their headgear – crowns, tiaras and mitres – have been included to show their station in life. Usually, the rich and powerful are seen mixing with ordinary mortals in Dooms to show equality on Judgement Day but in the Wenhaston Doom they are set apart for some reason.  Meeting them is St Peter in his papal tiara representing The Church which alone had the power to admit men and women to eternal life through the Sacraments.

The sheep and the goats have been separated and the sheep are admitted to the heavenly Mansions.  This is shown on the far left of the Doom.

The goats however, have only the eternal fires and gnashing of teeth to look forward to.  On the far right of the Doom little devils gather up the accursed and cast them into the jaws of Hell which are depicted here as the gaping, toothed mouth of a fish.  Leviathan, a huge aquatic creature is often mentioned in Hebrew poetry and this led to commentators and artists seeing Satan as Leviathan.  In the picture there is also a person still wearing their shroud, a swine’s snout, a devil blowing on a ram’s horn (the last trump?), the damned encircled by red-hot chains and the Seven Deadly Sins are represented, one of them carrying a female figure upside-down.

The text underneath the Doom is probably Elizabethan and is from an unknown version of the English Bible.  Romans 13 vv 1-4

“Let every soule submit him selfe unto the authorytye of the hygher powers for there is no power but of God the Powers that be are ordyend of God, but they that rest or are againste the ordinaunce of God shall recyve to them selves utter damnacion.  For rulers are not fearfull to them that do good but to them that do evyll for he is the mynister of God”.

I am greatly indebted to the excellent guide book I bought at the church for the explanation of the Doom’s symbolism.

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Above is a gallery of all the windows in the church and below is the door.

Apologies for the length of this post.