June meeting Visit to Sutton St.Edmunds Church

The North Brink Wisbech is undergoing work to the river banks which are being made higher & strengthened. This made access to the Quaker Meeting House Wisbech virtually impossible, so the venue for our June out & about meeting was changed from the Quaker meeting house to Sutton St. Edmunds Church Lincs.
On a very pleasant & warm evening about 35 members & guests were greeted by the church warden to the very pretty & small church of Sutton St. Edmunds & she gave us a short history & the many repairs that had taken place over the decades, whilst we sat in the box pews.
This grade 2 listed building was first built with straw, burned down & completely rebuilt in 1795 in brick & stone at a cost of £1200 financed from Queen Ann’s Bounty.
The organ, choir stalls & pulpit have been obtained over the years, from various other churches & there remains the original brass chandelier holding candles which is still lit for Christmas.
There is a lantern tower topped by the cupola housing one bell. The bell is 25½ inches in diameter & inscribed ‘Thomas Osborn founder Downham Norfolk 1801’
The magnificent stained glass east window shows the Ascension & is a gift from a Miss Whitsed in memory of her brother Isaac. There are 3 beautiful stained glass windows in the south wall two of which are memorials to a past vicar’s parents.
Several members enhanced their family history with what they found in the registers which had been made available & the younger & healthier of us climbed the stairs to the gallery & into the tower.
We were refreshed by coffee tea & biscuits & several people strolled around the graveyard finding the small gravestone which has a preservation order on it. We thInk we managed to decipher the words which said 1 AUG.1660. The Burma Star memorial garden was also appreciated.
Our next meeting in July is about Wisbech Anniversaries & the speaker is the ever popular Andrew Ingram.
[Barbara Holmes]