Listed Building: CHURCH OF ST PETER (281580)

MONK SOHAM SCHOOL ROAD (off) TM 26 NW 2/156 Church of St Peter 29.7.55 - I Parish church. Medieval, restored 1860. Nave, chancel, west tower, south porch. Flint rubble with stone dressings; nave heightened in red brick. The chancel is rendered and there is remains of render to the nave and upper half of the tower. Slated roofs. Early C14 square tower in 2 stages;.crenellated parapet decorated with chequer-pattern flushwork. 3-stage diagonal buttresses to west. Moulded west doorway. Lancet windows to ground floor (north and south) and at ringing chamber level (north, south and west). 2-light belfry openings, that to the south with more elaborate tracery. Nave walls are substantially early C14, with contemporary moulded north and south doorways. In C15 the walls were heightened and 3-light windows inserted, 3 to each side. C15 porch, formerly of high quality but much of the decorative work now lost or badly decayed. Entrance arch is enriched with fleurons, shields and crowns on both outer and inner faces; enriched hoodmould on mask stops, the spandrels formerly carved. 3 empty canopied niches above and to each side of the entrance. Front has remains of complete flushwork panelling. Embattled red brick parapet. Early C14 chancel has unaltered fenestration: regularly-spaced lancet windows with pointed trefoil heads, 3 to south, 4 to north. Unmoulded Priest's doorway. Very large east window of 5 lights with cusped intersecting tracery, said to be from Bury St Edmunds abbey. Interior. Nave has C15 8-bay arch-braced roof with false hammerbeams; short king-posts above the collars; the braces, purlins and ridge piece are all moulded. Enriched cornice, continued onto the hammerbeams. At the east end is the rood beam, enriched with moulding and brattishing. Chancel roof ceiled over; C19 wallplate. The chancel windows have internal hoodmoulds, linked together to form a continuous string course around the walls. Remains of canopied piscina in chancel, cut off flush with the wall; the credence shelf survives. Another piscina in the nave. East splay of south east nave window has a C15 canopied image niche. A simpler niche immediately west of the north nave doorway. Rood stair in north east nave, with doorways above and below. C15 octagonal font, the bowl panels carved with the Seven Sacraments and the crucifixion; against the base are seated figures and the Signs of the Evangelists. All the carving is defaced. Restored pulpit, dated 1604. 13 medieval benches with poppyhead ends at west end of nave. Other seating is later C19. Tower screen incorporates C14 tracery, perhaps from a former rood screen. Large C14 iron-bound chest in nave. In the base of the tower is a solid-tread stair to the ringing chamber; this is probably original and a rare survival. Listing NGR: TM2136265083