Monument record TUL 009 - Church of St Peter

St Peter's Church, Little Thurlow, is situated in the centre of the parish, E of the village. A church is recorded here in the Domesday book. The present church consists of a chancel, N chapel, nave, side aisles, N & S porches & W tower. It is an early C14 church with a C15 square tower of random stone & flint, with angle buttresses and a castellated parapet with knapped flint and stone chequer work. The clerestory windows on the N side are C17 and circular. The nave is of flint, stuccoed with a slate roof. There is a C12 square font with angle-shafts and panels carved with floral motifs. The traceried dado of a C15 screen remains with some original colouring. A Jacobean family pew has fret cut upper panels. On the N side of the chancel is the Soames chapel, Jacobean with semi-circular arches having arabesque carving on the soffits and pendants to the roof. It contains the fine marble and alabaster tomb of Sir Stephen Soame (died 1619), who built the chapel and was Lord Mayor of London in 1593. It bears the recumbent figures of Sir Stephen & his wife & the kneeling figures of their children. There is early C17 stained glass in the oval window of the chapel and there is the brass of knight & lady, circa 1520 (S1).