Heritage Church: St Botolph’s, Iken
Rachael Bentley visits this tiny, charming church looking out over the Snape reed beds in Suffolk
FROM the road it would be easy to pass through Snape without realising there was anything to see. The Maltings centre is the only obvious hive of activity, with its popular gift shops and concert hall. But stand in the Maltings car park, turn your back to the buildings and you’re greeted by a panorama of reed and sky.
Here, the River Alde slides like a silver stream into the marshes. The reeds are a mass of burnt sugar and honey, flanking the shifting, shimmering mud flats. Above, a lone marsh harrier cries into the wind. It is peaceful here, the air salt-tinged, carried in from the sea some six miles to the east.
Far across the marsh, a low spit of land can be seen easing itself into the silty waters. On a small knoll stands a church, its tower just visible, surrounded by trees and its watery congregation. This is St Botolph’s – a church some stumble upon by accident; a church some make a pilgrimage to.
The best way to discover the Alde estuary is on foot and you can walk to St Botolph’s along the estuary path from the Maltings. About half a mile from the crowds shopping for tableware, art and soft furnishings, you enter another world.
Here, the path seems to float between the reeds as earth is replaced by duckboards, the sound of your footsteps, the rustle of feathered seed heads and the sighs of wading birds welcome companions. If you’re lucky you might hear the “ping ping” call of a bearded tit as you follow the river towards Iken cliffs.
It’s not possible to walk all the way to the church through the marshes. Eventually you’ll need to head inland to join the public road. This route is a level, seven-mile walk. But you can easily drive there in a couple of minutes. As you pass the Maltings on the Orford Road, a traditional way marker points to Iken Church. At this road’s end you’ll find a pretty, private cul-de-sac where the Old Rectory – with its neatly tended lawns and hedgerows – sits beside the church. The first thing you’ll notice about the church itself is that its roof is partly thatched, its warm stone and small scale adding to its picture-postcard appearance.
This is an ancient site, sanctified by over 1,300 years of worship, a site where St Botolph himself brought the Christian faith to Iken. Born a Saxon noble, Botolph (Botwulf) was schooled at a Benedictine Abbey in Europe. He was very well connected and used his position wisely to request of King Anna of East Anglia “a piece of wasteland, an ownerless place” on which to build a minster.
He was granted Icanho “the Isle of Oxen” (widely believed to be Iken). And by 654 AD Botolph arrived on our shores. The island sat amidst desolate marshland and was said to be plagued by demons and evil spirits. Unperturbed, he set about ridding the land of its devils – possibly by draining the swamps and purging the land of marsh gases, or will-o’-thewisps (medieval Latin for “fool’s fire”) – and in this godforsaken place, Botolph built his minster.
The finished minster became a base for a community of missionary monks, who successfully spread the faith far across Suffolk, Norfolk and into Essex, evangelising pagans along
the way.
St Botolph remained the abbot at Iken until he died circa 680 AD, when he was buried in his minster, which stood until the Viking invasions. Although the Danes completely destroyed the monastery (870 AD), Botolph’s influence was so strong that
King Edgar authorised the removal of his body for safekeeping. His remains were taken to Burgh where they lay protected by fortress walls for 50 years. Some time later, his head was taken to Ely Abbey, his middle to Thorney and the rest of his bones were given to the King and sent to
Westminster Abbey. Such was the value of holy relics.
By the 900s, the faithful had erected a stone memorial cross on the site. The high cross was a monolith seven feet tall, the lower part of which can still be found within the church. It appears Celtic but it is actually of ancient Saxon design, its surface decorated with interweaving patterns and a dragon eating its own tail (an ancient symbol, adopted by agnosticism to symbolise eternity). A wooden church was also built around this time, which was dedicated to St Botolph, who had become the patron saint of wayfarers.
Between 1010-1110 the church was at last rebuilt in local stone rubble, the nave and chancel completed with tiny Norman-style slit windows, one of which can still be seen in the north wall of the nave. In the 1400s the western tower was built in the Suffolk style.
Four bells were cast for the new tower and a font bequeathed. Finally
the roof was thatched and the windows adorned with glass. In the Middle Ages the church would have been full of colour, with stained glass and vivid images painted upon the walls, to inspire the medieval people who couldn’t read.
In the 1500s the Puritans changed the church into a building of the reformation. Gone were the bright paintings of Our Lady and St John in favour of whitewash. The church’s undoing continued during the1800s, when a falling tree damaged the building. It was eventually pulled down and then rebuilt in the 1850s. But this was still not the church we see today.
During World War I the site was used by soldiers during battle training. By the grace of God the church came through the war relatively unscathed, only for tragedy to strike in 1968, when fire returned it to ruins, a stray bonfire spark catching hold on the thatch.This could have been the end for St Botolph’s, but thanks to a small group of parishioners and the Parochial Parish Council, through fund-raising and donations the church was saved. Renovations started in 1984 and included a new thatched roof and a restoration of the tower, the nave walls and buttresses. Ten years later, the church opened its doors.
The sign outside reads “St Botolph’s welcomes pilgrims. Here the door is always open”. While all churches are closed at the moment, travellers and pilgrims alike will hopefully soon be able to once again seek solace, offer prayer or simply take a look inside.
The interior of the church is clean and simple, with bare stone walls and mostly plain glass windows. But it is still beautiful. It is small and peaceful. The font remains, decorated with angels each carrying an evangelist symbol of the Passion. And beside the font is part of the shaft of the Saxon cross (the dragon can be seen on the back of the stone), which was discovered in the tower as it was being restored.
Outside, to the east of the church is a memorial to writer Julian Tennyson, grandson of the famous 19th-century poet. His memorial says, “Who fought and died for a new world and love”. He sadly didn’t survive World War II. His most famous book was Suffolk Scene, said to be one of the best books written about Suffolk in the 20th century, in which he evokes the county on the eve of the outbreak of the war.
St Botolph’s church is well worth a modern day pilgrimage through a wild and beautiful landscape. And as dusk falls, the place is wild once more, a place where curlews cry and bitterns boom across the lonely, wind-kissed marshes.
St Botolph’s Church, Iken, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 2ES. parish-council.com/iken