• 1. New St Mary, Braiseworth, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE.
    Private house, formerly parish church
    Braiseworth is in rolling arable farmland in N central Suffolk, 1½ miles S of Eye. It lies to the E of the Roman road from Ipswich to Diss, now the A140, but there is now no village centre, only the old and new churches (both now redundant), an orchard, Priory farm and a few widely dispersed houses on the lanes round about. Taking Priory farm as the centre, the land falls to the E to the valley of the river Dove, a stream that flows NE to join the river Waveney near Hoxne on the Norfolk border.
  • 2. St Edmund, Bromeswell, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE.
    Parish church
    Bromeswell is a village in SE Suffolk. The nearest town is Woodbridge, two miles to the W on the other side of the river Deben, which could be forded near the present Wilford bridge. Bromeswell lies on relatively high and fertile ground surrounded by low-lying heathland (to the S) and marshland (to the W). The early Anglo-Saxon site of Sutton Hoo is a mile to the SW, alongside the Deben.
  • 3. All Saints, Hacheston, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE.
    Parish church
    Hacheston is a village lying on the road from Framlingham to Wickham Market in east Suffolk. This road, now the B1116, follows the line of a stream that rises in Framlingham and runs into the river Alde at Blaxhall. The land is flattish and arable, and the church is built on a rise at the southern end of the village.
  • 4. St Peter, Henley, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE
    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.
  • 5. St Mary, Henstead, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SW.
    Parish church
    St Mary's is a flint church with a single, thatched nave and chancel, no chancel arch and a tall 14thc. W tower with diagonal buttresses and flushwork on the parapet. The two nave doorways are 12thc. work; the S protected by a 14thc. porch.
  • 6. St Margaret, Herringfleet, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from S.
    Parish church
    St Margaret's has an aisleless nave, chancel and round W tower. The nave and chancel are rendered; the nave thatched and the chancel roofed in tiles. There is a 12thc. window in the N chancel wall. The nave has a 12thc. S doorway under a later porch and a 13thc. N doorway, now blocked. The flint tower is of two storeys, the upper rendered. There are small round-headed lancets in the lower storey; two on the N side, two on the S and one on the W. The upper storey has 12thc. double bell openings in the cardinal directions, alternating with plain round-headed windows of brick with chamfered jambs. 12thc. features described here are the S nave doorway and the bell openings of the tower.
  • 7. St Mary and St Peter, Kelsale, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from S
    Parish church
    Kelsale is a good-sized village in east Suffolk, a mile N of Saxmundham. Saxmundham, Carlton and Kelsale now form a continuous settlement, and all three are bypassed by a loop of the A12. As so often happens, the main road has effectively cut off part of the old settlement, so that the centre of Kelsale is to the E of the A12 while Kelsale Hall is a mile to the NW, on the other side of it. Kelsale is sited on the side of a hill with the church, at its eastern edge, above the rest of the village. The land falls to the S and W towards the valley of a stream that eventually finds its way into the river Alde. Kelsale church has undergone considerable changes since the 12thc. It originally consisted of an unaisled nave and chancel, and possibly a W tower, but in the 14thc. a broad N aisle was added, higher and wider than the existing church and this became the nave, turning the old nave into a S aisle. The new nave was as long as the old nave and chancel together, and the church was lengthened by the addition of a new chancel (rebuilt in the 1870s), perhaps at the same. The old nave was extended eastwards in the 15thc., alongside the new chancel, to form a two-bay S chapel, and a S porch was added to the aisle. The present church thus consists of a nave with a four-bay S aisle and S porch, and a W tower at the end of the aisle, and a chancel with a 19thc. N vestry and a two-bay S chapel. The 12thc. N doorway was set in the new nave, and an elaborate priest’s doorway was added on the S side of the new chancel chapel, constructed of material that perhaps came from the 12thc. S doorway. Construction is of flint except for the chancel and its chapel, which are of knapped flint. The present 14thc. tower has diagonal buttresses, bell openings with complex flowing tracery and an embattled parapet with flushwork decoration. The 15thc. work also included the insertion of new windows on the N side of the 14thc. nave, and the addition of a spectacular W façade with angle buttresses decorated with flushwork and a five-light W window. There was a restoration in the 1870s, when the S aisle (i.e. the original nave) and the chancel were completely rebuilt. Romanesque features described here are the doorways on the N side of the nave and the S of the chancel chapel. The entrance to the churchyard is through a curious Arts and Crafts lych-gate designed by E.S. Prior.
  • 8. St Nicholas, Little Saxham, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from NE.
    Parish church
    Little Saxham is a small village in W Suffolk, just 3½ miles W of the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The church stands in the centre of the village. It is of flint and septaria and has a round W tower, a nave with a N aisle and a chancel with a N chapel, now used as a vestry. The tower is described by Pevsner as 'the most spectacular Norman round tower in Suffolk' on account of its arcaded bell-storey. It also has its original W window; small but decorated with chevron ornament and a tall, very narrow tower arch. The S nave doorway is 12thc. too, under a 14thc. porch, and another 12thc. doorway is now set inside, in the W wall of the nave, S of the tower arch. The N aisle, with a three-bay arcade of simply-moulded continuous arches with chamfered orders, dates fromc.1300, and to the same campaign belong the S clerestorey and the plain N nave and chancel doorways. The aisle windows have flowing and reticulated tracery and must have been added towards the middle of the 14thc. The chancel arch is tall and broad with Perpendicular capitals and bases. The nave S wall was remodelledc.1500 or slightly afterwards. It was heightened and given battlements and three-light windows in the plainest of Perpendicular styles. The N chapel was built as a chantry chapel by Sir Thomas Fitzlucas, Solicitor-General to Henry VII, in 1520. It has battlements and a window like those of the nave S wall. Fitzlucas died in 1531 after building his own tomb, decorated with shields in quatrefoils, but he was buried in London. He left a bequest for remodelling the chancel and adding battlements like those of the nave, but although the E window appears to date from this period the battlement was never added. Romanesque features described here are the S nave doorway, the re-set doorway and the windows, blind arcading, string course and tower arch. of the W tower.
  • 9. All Saints, Mettingham, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SW.
    Parish church
    All Saints has a nave with a S aisle, chancel and round W tower, all of flint, partly rendered. The nave and arcade are 14thc., with Perpendicular windows but no S clerestorey. There is a S aisle doorway under a simple brick porch and an unprotected 12thc. N doorway. The nave is roofed with lead and the chancel with slate with 19thc. cresting. The tower has a Perpendicular W window and bell openings, and a battlemented parapet decorated with flushwork. The N doorway is the only Romanesque feature.
  • 10. St Bartholomew, Orford, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE.
    Parish church
    Orford is a tiny coastal town in the sandlings of SE Suffolk, 16 miles due E of Ipswich. It was not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but there was a successful port at the mouth of the river Alde and a market here by 1138. The town received a boost from the building of the castle by Henry II between 1165 and 1173, but its importance fell as the port silted up; the sea throwing up the long sand bar that now extends for over 5 miles from Orford Ness down to Hollesley. The town is simply laid out around the market place, with the church at its E end and the castle 0.27 km W of the market at the edge of the town. The road from Sudbourne runs right through the centre, alongside the market, to end at the quay at the town's S edge.
  • 11. St Mary, Polstead, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE.
    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.
  • 12. St Peter, Redisham, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from S.
    Parish church
    St Peter's is a flint church of nave and chancel with a wooden bellcote over the W end of the nave, replacing the tower, which collapsed in the 19thc. There is no chancel arch, but sections of wall with responds between nave and chancel. The nave has been heightened and repaired in brick, and the exterior walls were once rendered. The church was repaired and the present pews installed by J. D. Botwright and J. Clarke in 1861-62. The nave walls presumably date from the 12thc., since there are Romanesque N and S doorways in-situ, the N blocked and partly obscured by an inconveniently sited shed; the S protected by a simple brick porch.
  • 13. St James, South Elmham St James, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE.
    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.
  • 14. St Michael, South Elmham St Michael, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SW
    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.
  • 15. St Margaret, Stoven, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from S.
    Parish church
    Stoven is in E Suffolk, 5 miles S of Beccles and 5 miles from the coast. The village consists of the church, a few houses and a public house on a low hill in a landscape that is otherwise is flat and arable. A moated site 300 yards N of the church may indicate a hall. St Margaret's was entirely rebuilt in a neo-Norman style between 1849 and 1858, but the 12thc. S doorway was re-used, and provided sources for much of the Victorian ornament. As it stands, the church consists of a nave and chancel, both mortar rendered, and a flint W tower. Where the mortar is flaking on the N side the body of the church is seen to be of flint and bricks. In 1808, before the rebuilding, the church was described by Davy who reported that it had a nave and chancel under a thatched roof and a small square steeple of flint. An 1823 description records that there were no buttresses on the side walls, and that there were three small pieces of stone with grotesque carvings let into the wall above the N door. These carvings are now lost.
  • 16. St Mary, Swilland, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from S.
    Parish church
    Swilland is a village in central Suffolk, 5.5 miles N of the centre of Ipswich. It extends along a side road off the B1077 Ipswich to Debenham road running approximately N-S, with the church and hall at the N end and Swilland manor 0.3 mile to the NW. The landscape here is the typical arable farmland of the East Anglian plain.
  • 17. St Andrew, Westhall, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from SE.
    Parish church
    St Andrew's is a flint church with a nave, S aisle, chancel and W tower. In fact the present S aisle is the original nave, and its smart W front, consisting of a doorway with a triple arch above, remains inside the early 14thc. W tower. A scar on the E wall of the tower indicates that the nave was originally taller and more steeply roofed. The 12thc. S doorway also remains in situ. An aisle was added to the N of the original nave in the 13thc., with an arcade of five bays, and was apparently widened, making it much wider than the original nave, in the later 14thc. The N nave doorway dates from this period. At this time the original chancel was abandoned and a new one attached to the N aisle. Signs of the original chancel arch remain on the exterior E wall of the present S aisle. A datestone (JW 1884) on this wall presumably refers to a restoration. Romanesque sculpture is found on the W and S doorways and the W window.
  • 18. St Andrew, Wissett, Suffolk, England
    Exterior from N.
    Parish church
    St Andrew's is a flint church consisting of a long unaisled nave with N and S doorways, the S under a 15thc. porch; a chancel with a N vestry, and a round W tower. Both doorways are 12thc. work, but the nave windows are Perpendicular. At the NE of the nave is a rood stair. The chancel is a rebuilding ofc.1800. The W tower has a plain, narrow arch towards the nave, narrow round-headed lancets at the level of the nave roof and oculi in the next storey. The oculi were discovered blocked and the N one reopened in 1977. The bell-openings are pointed and above them an added top storey has gargoyles and a battlemented parapet with flushwork merlons. Romanesque features described here are the two nave doorways and the tower arch.