Monument record DNN 022 - Church of St Mary

St Edmundsbury and Ipswich diocese, Suffolk archdeaconry, Hoxne deanery. Status: rectory. Structure: chancel, N vestry, nave, aisles, S porch, W tower. Date: chancel Decorated, rest C15. Church in S of parish in village (S4).
Perpendicular architecture with a long Decorated chancel. Perpendicular W tower with brick battlements. Perpendicular NE sacristy of two storeys, clerestory and N porch. Parclose screens "two prodigious pieces miraculously well preserved" (S1).
The SIA visited St Mary's in October 1859 and saw the "magnificent parclose screens"; effigies of Lord William Bardolph and Joan his lady "erected about 1450"; the open benches and "priest's chamber over the vestry" (S2). "The nave roof is interesting as being of the single framed and braced type but owing to the width of the nave it has two collars and a further attempt to stiffen it has been made by introducing at intervals curved ribs, springing from wall-posts and terminating halfway up the roof". "The C15 benches are remarkable for the varied and interesting treatment of traceried ends and have buttressed arm rests with grotesques". The parclose screens in the chapels of St Mary and St Margaret are C15. The pulpit was erected in 1625 and is "remarkable for the construction of its base, which has a central shaft and radiating balusters as braces" (precis) (S3).



Tournai Marble front of C1210. Superb bench ends. Pyx canopy of 1500 (only four in England)