In our relatively brief, self-centred existences, we might take for granted the fine medieval building that is Tuttington church. Its round tower makes it a member of a very select group of old buildings. It has watched folk come and go in our village over nearly 1000 years of its history and what stories it could tell.
We all have milestones but the church has had two significant ones that we know about. The first was when it was built, probably to replace an older chapel known to have been dedicated to St Botolph and who was celebrated annually at an event in Tuttington called the Earl’s Fair. There could have been one or more earlier timber structures on the site of the church of St Peter and St Paul going back into the mists of the Saxon dark ages and possibly beyond.
The second milestone was the Reformation which in England started in 1543 in the rule of Henry VIII and ended with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. Before that time Tuttington church was Roman Catholic and it likely contained many colourful and decorative objects, iconography, and wall paintings. During the reformation, the former symbolic trappings and statues were removed to be replace by the minimal simplicity of the Protestant era.
It is remarkable the many similarities that exist in the arrangement of old churches whether large or small and from this we might guess what Tuttington church contained. Even so it is difficult to know exactly what features Tuttington church had and when they were present over its long history. But, there are hints of former glories. Entrances to two architectural features can be seen at opposite ends of the nave – the big area you enter when coming through the main door. These entrances are hidden by small doors which lead onto the rising steps of two turrets. The steps are reminiscent of the spiral staircases found in the towers of medieval castles. The stairways are actually helical (constant radius) not spiral (variable radius) but who wants to be accused of pedantry?
The stairways are built into the walls of the church. The southwest turret next to the main door leads up limestone steps to a smaller door which seems to open in mid air out into the porch. This was the entrance to the ‘parvaise’, a small room for the rector’s use. There would have been a wooden floor above your head when standing in the porch, and two bricked-up window openings can be seen on the upper parts of the east and west walls of the porch inside and out. The empty niche above the birdcage door on the outside south wall of the porch would have housed a statue before the Reformation.
The other turret, in the northeast corner of the nave, also has a small door but its purpose is more enigmatic. There are, in fact, two stairways though not quite to heaven. The main spiral stairway leads up to the roof of the church and there might once have been a hatch to gain access to the outside of the nave roof behind the parapet. A second stairway branches off to the left after about a half turn of the main staircase. The branch stair turns to the right and abruptly stops at a bricked-up archway. The arch would originally have opened out into face of the wall just above the top of the current wooden pulpit.
It is likely that this archway would have given access to an area called the ‘rood loft’. The rood screen and loft are interesting parts of a church building but many have been lost. The screen was used to separate the common folk (like us) in the nave from the more elevated clergy (I hope you are reading this David) who occupied the restricted area of the chancel in which the choir stalls were also located. Rood screens often had highly complex and decorated woodwork with coloured paintings and gold trimmings. They permitted a limited view from the nave into the chancel and enhanced the idea of revelation, an important part of medieval worship.
The top of the rood screen was called the rood loft which was often like a bridge spanning the division between nave and chancel. The rood itself (from the Saxon word for cross) sat in the rood loft and was a collection of statues and carvings often depicting the crucifixion with attendant saints. Access to the rood loft was often by a stairway from one side of the rood screen. And this is the likely origin of the second staircase and short passage in the northeast turret of Tuttington church. We can only guess at the wonder that must have been the complete rood screen in the heyday of our little local church. Follow this link to see the rood screen and access doorway at Ranworth church, or even visit the church and climb up the tower for an amazing view.