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- 1. St Peter, Henley, Suffolk, England
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Parish church Henley is a substantial but compact village 4 miles N of the centre of Ipswich in hilly farmland. The land is now used mainly for cereals and sugar beet, but in 1086 it included pasture and woodland too. The church stands in the centre of the village, its small graveyard surrounded by houses. St Peter's consists of a nave with a large N vestry, chancel and W tower. The flint nave is 12thc. in origin, with a remodelled S doorway decorated with chevron under a 19thc. porch. The 13thc. N doorway now provides access to a knapped flint vestry; originally the village school of 1838, but rebuilt here in 1904 to serve as vestry and Sunday school. The nave windows are generally 15thc. and renewed, except for a three-light terracotta window in the S wall dating from the 1520s and probably taken from Old Shrubland Hall (demolished in the 19thc.). The nave originally ended just W of the lateral doorways, but was extended westwards when the tower was added c.1500. Nave and chancel are of equal width and there is no chancel arch. The flint chancel retains its 13thc. piscina and aumbry, and has 13thc. lancets on the N and 14thc. windows on the S, but it was rebuilt in 1894. The tower arch is tall and the flint tower itself has diagonal buttresses to the W with flushwork decoration, a Perpendicular W window and bell-openings, and a battlemented parapet of brick. An inscription over the W door asks for prayers for the soul of Thomas Seckford and his wife, Margaret. Seckford was a clothier who died in 1505 and was presumably responsible for funding the new tower. Major restorations took place here in 1846, 1894-95 and 1904, and another was in progress, involving the nave roof, in November 2005. The S doorway is described below, along with a capital re-set alongside it.
- 2. St Mary, Hinderclay, Suffolk, England
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Parish church Hinderclay is a village in N central Suffolk, 6 miles W of Diss. It stands in rolling arable land and consists of a cluster of houses around a crossroads with the church off the southern arm and the hall just 180 m to the S of it. Nearby, on the edge of Hinderclay wood, were found the remains of an early Iron Age settlement, and there were Roman pottery kilns in the wood too.
- 3. All Saints, Kenton, Suffolk, England
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Parish church Kenton is a village in mid-Suffolk, 13 miles N of Ipswich. The nearest town is Debenham, 2 miles to the SW. The land here is the usual arable farmland of the East Anglian plain. A tributary of the Deben runs to the E of the village, and the church is in the village centre with the moated site of Kenton Hall, now a 16thc. building, half a mile outside the village to the S.
- 4. Holy Trinity, Middleton, Suffolk, England
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Parish church Middleton is a substantial village in east Suffolk, midway between Aldeburgh and Southwold and 3 miles from the coast. The Minsmere River runs through the village on its way to the partially drained coastal marshland that now forms the Minsmere bird sanctuary. The village centre is on the rising arable land S of the river with the church at its northern edge. Holy Trinity church has a nave and chancel in one, under a single roof, with a S porch to the nave, and a W tower with a spire. Both nave and chancel are 12thc. The nave has a shaft at its SW angle and a chevron-decorated S doorway, and the chancel has the remains of 12thc. ornament around its interior western windows on both sides. The piscina also includes some 12thc. work. The 12thc. chancel must have been lengthened and a new piscina built incorporating material from the old one. The E window and two N windows are intersecting or Y-tracery work ofc.1300, and this was presumably when the chancel was extended. The nave also has one Y-tracery on the N. All other nave and chancel windows are 15thc. insertions, and there is no N doorway to the nave. The S porch is mortar rendered with flushwork panels, battlements and a stepped gable. It has a classical pediment over the entrance and may be 15thc., remodelled in the 18thc. The nave and chancel have been refaced in mixed knapped flints and rubble, laid to give a crazy-paving effect. The tall, slender tower is of flint with heavy quoins at the eastern angles that may be 12thc. At the W are added diagonal buttresses with flushwork chequers. It has been heightened, and its upper storey has a slight setback. The bell-openings are 15thc., as is the embattled parapet with its flushwork tracery panels. The spire is a slender lead spike, and was completely rebuilt in 1955. While the work was proceeding, the thatched roof of the church caught fire, and the blaze spread to the rest of the building. Villagers rescued most of the furnishings, and surprisingly little was irrevocably lost. Romanesque work is found on the S doorway, the nave SW angle shaft, the piscina and around two chancel windows.
- 5. St Michael, Oulton, Suffolk, England
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Parish church In 1868 Oulton was described as a large and irregular village 2 miles W of Lowestoft, bordered by Oulton Broad on the SW and by the river Waveney. It was chiefly an agricultural village then, with a portion of the inhabitants engaged in the fisheries (National Gazetteer). Oulton Broad still forms a natural boundary to the S, and Oulton Marsh another to the W. Oulton Dyke, linking the broad and the river, runs through the marsh half a mile W of the western edge of Oulton. The church is on a low knoll on this western edge and the view over the marsh towards the dyke and the Waveney beyond is much as it must have been in 1868. This was the site of the old village too, but the centre has migrated away from the marshland to the N and W. Immediately to the E of the church now is a large housing estate, and immediately to the E of this is Lowestoft, which has spread to engulf Oulton village, stopping only at the edge of the marshes.
- 6. St Mary, Polstead, Suffolk, England
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Parish church Polstead stands on a hilltop on the N side of the Box valley, some 8 miles N of Colchester and 11 miles W of Ipswich, set in a landscape of woodland and pasture. Church and hall are close together at the W of the village. St Mary's is a flint church with an aisled nave, chancel and W tower with a spire. Evidence of a unaisled 11thc. church can be seen in the long and short quoins alongside the tower in the W wall of the S nave aisle. The 12thc. nave arcades are of four bays, the westernmost bay being separated from the rest by a short stretch of walling. Above the arcade arches are the blocked openings of the 12thc. clerestory, now rendered obsolete by the raising of the aisles. At the W end can be seen the inside of the 12thc. facade, with the rere-arch of the W doorway and a window above. The elaborate front of the W doorway is now inside the 14thc. tower. At the E end, the chancel arch is also 12thc. and goes with the arcades, and the narrow, boxy chancel has a blocked 12thc. window. The most surprising feature of this campaign is that the arches of the arcade and chancel arch, the rere-arch of the W doorway, all the windows and the chancel quoins are of brick and tufa blocks. Both Pevsner and Mortlock point out that this is unlikely to be reused Roman brick, as the size is wrong. These may therefore be the earliest English bricks in the country — certainly predating those of Little Coggeshall Abbey (Essex) ofc.1200, which are similar in size. The nave aisles were been heightened and widened in the 14thc.; the E windows of the nave aisles are reticulated (S) or flowing (N), perhaps ofc.1350, but the lateral aisle windows are late Perpendicular, as is the chancel E window — evidence of a major campaign around 1500. The 14thc. campaign also included the building of the tower, the addition of two-light lateral chancel windows and the replacement of the nave roof timbers. At the same time the lateral nave doorways and porches were added, and a start was made on replacing the nave arcades with pointed arches. The W bay of the S arcade was replaced, and some work done on the E arches of both arcades, but the project was abandoned. The exterior of the nave roof is now double-pitched with a flat top. Thefts of lead from the roof led to the cladding being replaced with stainless steel in 1983-88, and dormer windows were added at this time to compensate for the lack of a clerestory. Romanesque sculpture recorded below is found in the W nave doorway, the nave arcades and the chancel arch.
- 7. St James, South Elmham St James, Suffolk, England
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Parish church The seven South Elmham villages; St James, All Saints, St Nicholas, St Cross, St Margaret, St Michael and St Peter, to which may be added Homersfield, sometimes referred to as South Elmham St Mary, lie in a scattered group between Bungay and Halesworth in NE Suffolk, to the W of the Roman road known as Stone Street. North Elmham (the centre of the see until 1071) is over 30 miles away, to the NW of Norwich, and both apparently took their name from Aethelmaer (bishop of East Anglia 1047-1070) the landholder before the Conquest. This is not certain; Tricker suggests that the name meant villages where elm trees grew. The land here is flat, generally arable and sparsely populated; the villages rarely more than a few houses clustered around the church without shops or pubs.
- 8. St Peter, Sibton, Suffolk, England
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Parish church Sibton is set in rolling arable and woodland on the S side of the Yox valley in W Suffolk, 5 miles S of Halesworth and 4 miles N of Saxmundham. It is immediately E of Peasenhall, on the Roman road that is now the A1120. The church stands on the A1120 at the eastern end of the village, and to the N of it is the site of Sibton Abbey, founded around 1150 and the only Cistercian house in the county. It is now ruinous and surrounded by woodland. Half a mile further E is Sibton Park and the hall site. St Peter’s has a nave with a N aisle and S porch, a chancel with a N organ room and vestry and a W tower. The flint nave has ac.1200 S doorway under a 19thc. porch, and the S windows, replaced in the 19thc., have plate tracery. The knapped flint N aisle dates fromc.1500, and has a four-bay arcade, broad, three-light windows and a battlemented parapet outside. The N doorway to the aisle is a re-set 13thc. piece. The flint chancel was rebuilt in the 19thc., with a S doorway that copies motifs from the 12thc. nave doorway. The tower has a plain and continuous pointed arch to the nave, but is substantially 15thc. and constructed of flints, knapped flints and septaria. It has diagonal buttresses with flushwork decoration and a battlemented parapet with flushwork and gargoyles below. A clear masonry break shows that the bell stage has been rebuilt or raised. The only feature recorded here is the Transitional S nave doorway.
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