Suffolk Special: The estuary church near Aldeburgh

There has been a church for almost 1350 years. This is where St Botolph came ashore in AD 654, and founded his monastery.

The church tower is a good visible from a good way off. We saw it from Snape Malting’s and so round the lanes, over to see it. The church sits in its pretty churchyard. On three sides are the marshes, and the river runs around it like a girdle.

Inside is a lovely font, one of the best in the East Anglian style: angels alternate with evangelistic symbols to convey the Passion. 

And by the font a large object! It is part of a Saxon cross, discovered in the tower when it was restored. It is the bottom 1.5 metres of a cross that must have been about 3 metres high. It perhaps dates from the 9th century. It may have been raised here as a commemoration after the Vikings had destroyed the original monastery.

Across the shifting, shimmering mudflats, the fading light shows them gold, over the fence to the north, the sheep graze and one comes up to us and say hello.

Excellent full story here http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk