Ralph Blenerhaysett

Date of Brass:

1675

Place:

Frenze

County:

Norfolk

Country:

Number:

I

Style:

Norwich 1

Description

March 2011

The earliest identifiable series of Norwich-made brasses began around 1450. While the effigies of men in civilian dress, ladies and priests produced by this workshop are close to the then current London styles, the effigies in armour differ very considerably from those made in the London workshops. However, although this Norwich workshop lasted for around thirty years, it is strange that the few surviving armoured effigies it produced all seem to come from the last ten years. One that is now lost, to Sir Henry Grey at Ketteringham, survived long enough to be illustrated by Cotman and appears to represent a slightly earlier style of armour. The brass of Ralph Blenerhaysett, who died in 1475, differs little from those at Bylaugh, Norfolk, Sotterley, Suffolk, and the lost effigy of Sir Miles Stapilton, again illustrated by Cotman, at Ingham, Norfolk, except for his better, but by no means perfectly, proportioned legs.

    St Andrew’s church at Frenze has a collection of brasses to Ralph’s family, the Blennerhassetts of which his is the earliest. The church is just east of Diss, near the border with Suffolk, and is next to the manor house that belonged until 1636 to the family but there is no sign of a village. The reason Ralph’s is the earliest brass is that he was the first of his family to own the property. Around 1423 he married Joan de Lowdham, heiress to this and other properties in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. It is no wonder that the inscription of his brass called him a venerabilis vir when he died over fifty years later. The Blennerhassett family came from Cumberland and Ralph was the fifth son of another Ralph, his arms bearing an annulet denoting that.