Wool church

A wool church is an English church built primarily from the proceeds of the mediaeval wool trade. Wool churches are common in the Cotswolds and in East Anglia, where enormous profits from the wool business spurred construction of ever-grander edifices.

The church at Long Melford, Suffolk, is widely regarded as one of the finest wool churches in England. Built largely from 1467-1497, Holy Trinity contains magnificent stained glass from the fifteenth century, the Clopton family chantry chapel and the soaring Lady Chapel, which extends at Holy Trinity's east end. [ [http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/Longmelford.htm Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk, suffolkchurches.co.uk] ] The Flushwork employed by the builders of Holy Trinity is some of the finest in England. The church stands as testimony to the wool business and its dizzying success in medieval times. [ [http://www.stedmundsbury.anglican.org/longmelford/ web site of Holy Trinity, Church, Long Melford, Suffolk] ] Another grand Suffolk wool church is St. Edmund in Southwold, which boasts extraordinary painted chancel screens [ [http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/Southwold.htm St. Edmund, Southwold, photos, suffolkchurches.co.uk] ] , although nearly all the medieval stained glass is gone, thanks to zealous Puritans during Cromwell's reign. Ironically, Peter Hobart, who served as assistant vicar of St. Edmunds following his graduation from Magdalen College, Cambridge, later left Suffolk for the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Hobart became the first pastor of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, the oldest church in continuous use in the United States.(A more vivid contrast to England's wool churches can hardly be imagined. Old Ship Church is a hand-hewn wooden structure with a modified Hammerbeam roof and not a shard of stained glass in sight.)

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