Long Melford, Holy Trinity - Clopton Chantry

Holy Trinity, Long Melford, Suffolk, is, physically a long church - a coincidence that is, surely, more to do with the wealth and piety of Late Medieval donors than of nominative determinism. Looking east to west from this perspective, we can see the substantial Lady Chapel. Moving our attention westwards, there is the magnificent fifteenth century nave aisle and clerestory - and then there is the curio that is the tower. Despite appearances it is an eighteenth century brick structure re-faced with flint flushwork and stone between 1897-1903. 

However, if we shift perspective and view this mighty church from slightly north of east, it would be easy to miss the small chapel, tucked onto the east end of the north aisle. Even with the impressive seven-light window, there is little from outside to prepare us for the riches that lie within.

Entering the Clopton Chantry is one of my favourite 'church crawling' experiences. Firstly, there is the quality of the light flooding through that large seven-light window we saw from outside. Then there is the gorgeous open ogee arch above the founder's tomb on the southern wall of the chantry, together with the parade of shields below (now empty) statue niches headed with exquisitely carved canopies. But that is as nothing, compared to the thrill I get when I step inside and look upwards.

The elaborately carved ceiling with each beam decorated with four little cartouches. Below is a carved and painted wall plate frieze full of Late Medieval text. 

Focusing in a little, we see a part of a carved foliate motif that recurs throughout the frieze. A hand holds the unfolding parchment upon which, in this example, is written poetry by the Suffolk-born monk-poet, John Lydgate (c1370-c1451). 

The quality of light here is further enhanced by this window at the rear of the chapel, with its low ceiling, that Mortlock notes, is, 'like a gallery' ('The Guide to Suffolk Churches', 2009). Although its glory is inevitably faded by the centuries, there is medieval colour and text everywhere in this remarkable place. Mortlock also notes that, 'In 1990 the chapel was handsomely refurbished by the Clopton family Association of America'. Thankfully, this was a sensitive and restrained conservation. 

John Clopton (1423-1497) made his considerable fortune as a lawyer, acting as executor to aristocrats such as the dowager Duchess of Buckingham. He also served on a large number of royal commissions, as well as being a justice of the peace over several decades. During the turbulent period of the 'Wars of the Roses', Clopton was very closely associated with the Lancastrian faction and, indeed, in 1461 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower, having been charged alongside several other prominent Lancastrians with 'high and mighty treason'. However, whereas his 'associates' were subsequently beheaded on Tower Hill, for reasons unknown, Clopton survived going on the be granted a pardon. Serving in official capacities between the reigns of Edward IV and Henry VII, he was clearly a capable and canny survivor (source: 'Five Centuries of an English Parish Church: The State of Melford Church, Suffolk' by David Dymond & Clive Paine, 2012).

When John Clopton finalised his will in 1494 (dying three years later) he stipulated: 'My body to be buried in the lytell chapell in Melforde churche, there my grave is redy made, even by my wif'. In a tomb located beneath a low arch in the 'prime' spiritual site proximate to the sanctuary of the church, lie John and his wife, Alice. Above them, on the underside of the arch, is a faded fresco of the Risen Christ, with a Latin inscription within a cartouche quoting St John's Gospel: 'Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die'. It is also significant that their tomb was, 'designed as an Easter Sepulchre, which meant that for the three most important days of the liturgical year the sacrament representing Christ's body lay over their mortal remains.' (Dymond & Paine). This is, then, spatial spirituality exemplified!

Faded fresco depicting Alice Clopton

Clopton had been instrumental in the establishment of the chantry for Dame Margaret Leynham in 1482. Furthermore, he also set up the service chantry of John Hill, which is now the large Lady Chapel, located at the eastern end of the church. Clopton, then, clearly had all the requisite skills and experience required to set his own chantry on solid foundations. He must have gone to his grave in the certainty of 'perpetual' prayers to speed the passage of his soul through the trials of purgatory. However, fate - in the substantial form of Henry VIII and the English Reformation - decreed that this chantry would only survive 'institutionally' a further fifty years from his death. Whatever the mysteries behind the remarkable preservation of this chapel, we can be thankful to John Clopton for leaving behind such a rich legacy. 

The Fallible Flaneur <*(((((><(