Monument record WNN 006 - Church of St John the Baptist

St Edmundsbury and Ipswich diocese, Ipswich archdeaconry, Woodbridge deanery. Status : vicarage. Structure : chancel, nave, W tower. Date : mainly Decorated with remains of previous Norman church in the fabric. Church lies in the N of the parish (S4).
In July 1982 the SIA visited the church of St John the Baptist and made the following report : "Church built mainly of local materials, flint, crag, septaria, with Caen stone for dressings of C12 doorway and windows. Fine Norman font and chancel arch. Chancel renovated in 1860s, unaffected by Gothic revival ; nave rough and bare, with pre-Reformation benches with holes for rushlight tapers, C15 seats patched with discarded wainscot from Hall, and decent new woodwork. Traces of wall painting (? St Christopher), consecration crosses, vigorous George III royal arms, ancient rehung bell, small brasses, Stuart communion table and Elizabethan chest" (S1). "Norman S doorway with one order of colonnettes and a hood-mould with triangle or flat nutmeg decoration. In the chancel one Norman window (Norman chancel arch). Font late C12. Entirely built of small blocks of stone. Benches with poppy-heads and grotesques on the arms" (S2).
"The tower of this church is entirely built of coralline crag". The Norman S doorway has "engaged shaft to jamb and an arch of three "orders, with heads as terminals and at apex of hood-mould, a slit window N of the chancel, the chancel arch 6 feet 5 inches wide with engaged shaft and arch of two orders, one chevroned" (precis) (S3).
August 1994: Recording of fabric and architectural structures in the N & S walls of nave & chancel carried out prior to repointing - suggest three main phases, late C11/C12, late C13 - early C14 & C16 or C17 - details in (S5).