St Michael and St Felix Church, Rumburgh

Image: © Marathon Taken: 26 Aug 2017

When approaching from the west and passing remains of a moat and seeing the dominating west tower, it is realised that this is not a normal church. Indeed the church was not built as a parish church but as the church of a small Benedictine Priory. Aethelmaer,Bishop of Elmham, and Thurstan, Abbot of St Benet at Holme, jointly founded the priory between 1047 and 1064. It was a cell of Holme Abbey in Norfolk. Brother Blakere was the first prior. In 1070 the Bishop fell out of favour. The property was transferred to Count Alan the Red of Brittany who was a follower of William the Conqueror. On Alan's death, his brother gave Rumburgh Priory to the Abbey of St Mary in York. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it was recorded that 12 monks lived at the Priory. It was suppressed in 1528 and Cardinal Wolsey was granted the Priory's property and incomes. The plan of the church is Saxon with the broad west tower instead of a Saxon porch (according to Pevsner), and a nave and chancel of the same width. There are no aisles and no chapels. The west tower does dominate - it is wider than it is deep. It dates in its present form from the mid-13th century. See http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/rumburgh.htm for more detailed information and photographs and also https://www.achurchnearyou.com/rumburgh-south-elham-all-saints-st-michael-st/ For an impression of how the priory looked at the time of its dissolution and how it related to the present church tower see http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5518785

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