Up a track and through fields, though on the brink of Ipswich
housing, St Mary’s remains rural and remote. Small and simple
it dates mainly from the later Middle Ages, apart from the brick
south chapel added in the 16th or 17th century, with the flint
tower south of the nave serving as a porch. There is a fine font
with traceried panels around the bowl. A piscina in the chapel and
a blocked north doorway in the nave were uncovered during recent
repairs.
St Mary, Akenham, was the scene of one of the great
ecclesiatical scandals of the 19th century, a scandal that occupied
the national press for a year or more; a scandal that reached the
highest courts in the land, and ultimately led to a change in the
law. It is the story of a conspiracy, a tale of manipulation and
persecution. Even more than this, it was a watershed in the
controversy surrounding the Oxford Movement, and the irresistible
rise of Anglo-catholicism. It all started with Father George Drury
refusing to bury a young child as he had not been christened.The
solitary gravestone to the north of the church of the two year old
boy (1878) helped to alter the Burial Laws of England.
More information can be found on Simon Knotts excellent Suffolk
church website where some of this information was found.
In 1940, a German bomber, returning from a foray over a Midlands
city, dumped the rest of its load here before the hazardous
crossing of the North Sea. A mine hit St Mary directly, wrecking
the building. It remained derelict until the 1960s, when the energy
and enthusiasm of the local people, and the resources of the
Friends of Friendless Churches, rescued the little building and
restored to use, as part of the benefice of Whitton and Thurleston.
In 1976, the Anglican Diocese declared it redundant; not, perhaps,
unreasonably. It was vested in the care of the Redundant Churches
Fund, now the Churches Conservation Trust
Like all CCT churches, Akenham is admirably cared for. The great
irony is that the main custodian and keyholder is at Rise Hall, the
farm where Drury's 'protestant churchwarden' Mr Smith lived, who
was not allowed a key. The path between hall and church cannot have
changed at all in the years since.
Inside the church is the war memorial, it bears just three
names, but they are all members of the same family, Purkiss.
If anyone would like to expand this Church Micro numbered series
please do. Please contact sadexploration
via this website, so that he can keep track of the church numbers
and names to avoid duplication.
You can drive up to the church on a bumpy track though it does
make a lovely walk too.
The cache is a camo tube and is not hidden in the church
yard