Mausoleum Of Absalom Feavearyear North Of Wingfield Green Farmhouse

Mausoleum of Absalom Feavearyear, Wingfield Green

This mausoleum, also known as the Summerhouse, was built in 1840 by Absalom Feavearyear, a carpenter and stonemason of the parish. It stands north of Wingfield Green Farmhouse and was constructed following a dispute with the vicar over the payment of tythes. Having sworn he would never set foot in the church again, Feavearyear designed and built his own mausoleum on land he had paid to have consecrated by the Bishop of Norwich.

The building is rectangular in plan with a low pitched roof featuring pedimented gables and deep eaves. It is constructed of brick with a corrugated iron roof and has a wooden cornice, eaves and gables. Windows are positioned on the east and west elevations. The west window has two lights, one glazed and one with vertical iron bars. The east window contains four lights divided by wooden mullions, with the north light unglazed and fitted with vertical iron bars. A stone plaque above the east window bears the inscription "This Summer House was built in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty by ABSALOM FEAVEARYEAR Carpenter of this Parish in the Sixty Fourth year of his Age". The entrance on the south elevation has a moulded wooden architrave with roundels at the corners; the door is divided into six panels by applied beading.

The interior contains three inscribed headstones set upright against the north wall. Absalom's headstone stands opposite the door, flanked by those for his son and daughter-in-law. Absalom's stone features concave shoulders with a moulded cornice above; round door handles are suspended from each end of the cornice. Below the cornice is a relief carving depicting Absalom at work with an axe in the foreground and his house behind him, with the door to a single storey wing standing open. The inscription, predominantly in lower case italic with Absalom's name in capitals, reads: "In a Vault beneath are deposited the Mortal Remains of ABSALOM FEAVEARYEAR (Carpenter; of this Parish) and Donor of this Estate and several Cottages to his Son Absalom, and to the Heir at Law for Ever. After a long and severe conflict with the World, the Flesh and the Devil, Died in hopes of a Joyfull Resurrection on the". The space for the date of his death was left blank. At the foot of the stone, in inverted commas, is "The Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the World and they that dwell therein."

His son's headstone has concave shoulders but no moulded cornice, and is raised on a rectangular stone slab inscribed "Built in 1841". The son's inscription reads "To the Memory of ABSALOM FEAVEARYEAR (Carpenter) The Heir to this Estate and Son of the Donor" and records his birth and marriage to Thirza, daughter of David Feavearyear, though the date of his death was not recorded. Below this is "Read at your leisure the XXI Chap. of St Matthew, and the II Chap. of St John, and Judge for yourselves. Temple built 1014 Years before Christ." Thirza's stone records her birth, marriage, and a daughter, Maria, with the text "Blessed are the Dead that Die in the Lord" at the foot. The biblical references on the son's stone allude to Matthew 21, "My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves," reflecting his father's view of the vicar and his reasons for rejecting the church.

Lying on the floor immediately in front of the headstones are stones inscribed with the word "VAULT" and the dates they were laid: 1840 for Absalom's vault and 1841 for the two flanking vaults. The remainder of the floor is laid with unglazed clay tiles.

Absalom Feavearyear, a carpenter and stonemason, carved his own headstone and the two subsequent ones added in 1841 for his son and daughter-in-law, who married in December 1840. Absalom senior died in 1852 and was buried as he wished in his mausoleum, although his family neglected to insert the date of his death on the headstone. His son and daughter-in-law, however, chose to be buried in the churchyard rather than in the mausoleum.