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1. All Saints, Ashbocking, Suffolk, England

Parish church
The centre of the present village of Ashbocking lies along the B1077 Ipswich to Debenham road, immediately to the N of its crossroads with the B1078 Wickham Market to Needham Market road and the some 6.5 miles N of the centre of Ipswich. The B1078 follows the line of a Roman road here. An older centre, consisting of the church with Ashbocking Hall alongside it and a few dwellings lies a mile to the W. The landscape here is the typical arable farmland of the East Anglian plain, its flatness tempered by the valley of a stream that runs westwards just S of the church to join the river Gipping near Needham Market.
2. St Mary, Ashby, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Ashby is in Lothingland, the Nernmost hundred of Suffolk. It is a tongue of land enclosed by the Waveney, which turns N after leaving Beccles so that it may reach the sea at Yarmouth rather than Lowestoft. The land here is low-lying and arable, and its villages have usually managed to resist encroachments by their giant neighbours to the N and S. Ashby church now stands alone in farmland, 0.4 mile S of a small, dispersed cluster of houses that is all there is of Ashby village. The medieval village was in the land immediately to the N of the church, and was deserted byc.1600. N of the present village is Ashby Warren and the Fritton Decoy - a lake fitted with nets for catching wild duck. Both the warren and the decoy appear to date from the 16thc.
3. Holy Trinity, Barsham, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Holy Trinity looks conventional from the S, bizarre from the E and a complete mess from the N. It has a thatched nave of flint with one 12thc. window in the N wall, with a head reportedly of Caen stone. The S nave doorway has a flint porch, the N is unprotected. A two-bay N aisle was added as a chapel to St Catherine by F.C. Eden in 1908; Perpendicular in style but low and without a clerestorey. It does not extend to the W end, terminating E of the N doorway. On the exterior it is of rendered flint with a low, almost flat, lead roof. The W tower is round and has three phases. The lowest level is of flint with slightly pointed lancets to the cardinal directions. The E lancet is inside the church; the W has moulded decoration. Below it is an inserted Perpendicular W window. The next stage is of flint with signs of large blocked windows visible in the stonework. The top stage, probably 16thc., employs decorative bands of brick on the flint and has Perpendicular bell openings. The chamfered parapet is of brick.
4. St Michael, Boulge, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Boulge is in the E of the county, 2½ miles NW of the centre of Woodbridge. The landscape is the usual arable farmland of the E Anglian plain; not entirely flat and drained by the network of streams running into the Deben estuary at Martlesham Creek, S of Woodbridge. The name is said to derive from the French 'bouge', meaning an uncultivated heathland, although the Domesday survey give a picture of many small parcels of ploughland. The parish covers approximately a square mile in a two-mile long strip running NE to SW, but it is sparsely populated and there is no village. The community now consists of just 13 dwellings in all; just a couple of farms and a few scattered cottages. The church stands to the N of a small wood in the former parkland surrounding the site of Boulge Hall, demolished in 1956. The normal access to the church is from the S, and from this aspect it appears almost entirely Victorian. St Michael's has a W tower, a nave with a S aisle and a chancel with a large S vestry. Nave and chancel are of flint, of equal width and roofed in one. There is no chancel arch. A plain blocked N lancet in the chancel indicates a date in the early 13thc., but for the rest, the N windows of nave and chancel are ofc.1300 (Y-tracery),c.1320 (reticulated) or 15thc., the N nave doorway is 14thc., and the E wall of the chancel dates from 1858. On the south, the nave aisle is of three bays; the two at the E with a normal pentise roof, and the west bay taller and with its own gabled roof, built as a Fitzgerald family chapel. Edward Fitzgerald, translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, is buried in the churchyard. The chancel also has a transeptal vestry and organ chamber. This work on the S of the church was carried out in three campaigns, in 1858 (by W. G. and E. H. Habershon), in 1867 (by W. G. Habershon and A. Pite), and in 1895 (by S. Gambier Parry of Wminster). In each case the patron was the owner of the Hall; J. P. Fitzgerald for the two earlier works and Mr and Mrs Holmes White for the latest campaign. In each case too, knapped flint facings were used. The Tudor tower is of brick with an embattled parapet and a pointed segmental headed tower arch. Maintenance work to the fabric was carried out in 1978-81 by A. W. Anderson of Norwich (roofs), in 1981 (N wall) and in 1983-84 (tower). Boulge has no Romanesque fabric, but is significant in housing a font said to be an export from Tournai.
5. All Saints, Bradfield Combust, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Bradfield Combust straddles the A134, Bury St Edmunds to Sudbury road, some 5 miles S of Bury. This was a Roman road, but is now an important thoroughfare that divides the church, Church Farm and the Manger public house, on the W side, from the hall and its park on the E. The village takes its name from the burning of the hall, one of the Abbot of St Edmundsbury’s residences, by disaffected tenants in 1327. The present hall is a 19thc. building, surrounded by a park planted by the Rev. Arthur Young (d.1759), father of the celebrated agriculturalist and political economist of the same name. The surrounding country is the typical rolling farmland of this part of W Suffolk.
6. St Peter, Elmsett, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Elmsett is a large agricultural village 7 miles W of the centre of Ipswich. The country here is rolling and arable, with much sugar beet grown. The village suffered casualties in 1941 when a bomb (possibly intended for Wattisham airfield, 3 miles to the NW) destroyed a row of cottages, and there has been some new building to replace them. The church is outside the village centre to the NE, and stands on ground that slopes steeply down to a tributary of the Belstead Brook to the N. The site has been partially levelled by building a steep embankment N of the churchyard and cutting into the slope on the S, for the foundations. Hence the floor inside the nave is much lower than the ground to the S, where the entrance is.
7. St Mary and St Lawrence, Great Bricett, Suffolk, England

Formerly Augustinian priory, now parish church
Great Bricett is a village in central Suffolk, 5 miles S of Stowmarket and 9 miles NW of the centre of Ipswich. It stands in arable farmland on a minor road that runs from the village to the buildings of Wattisham airfield, immediately N of it. The priory church is in the centre of the village, to the W of the main street, with a moated site 300 yards further to the W. The church is a very long, low aisleless building under a single roof of modern tiles. It has no chancel arch, but the position of the division is marked by an external buttress and a change in masonry, as well as a slight northward change in orientation at the E end and N rood stair. Only the S side of the church is accessible; to the N lay the cloister surrounded by the usual priory offices but after the Dissolution a manor house was built directly onto the NW angle and this covers most of the complex. The nave had a 12thc. W tower, the blocked tower arch surviving inside with a blocked window above it, visible inside and out. The W façade is now plain and gabled, and is partly hidden by the 16thc. manor house built against it. On the W gable is a plain, rendered single bell-cote of 1907. The outline of a blocked, plain S doorway is visible to the E of the S porch. That must be the original doorway ofc.1110; the present S doorway is ofc.1160-70, under a modern flint and timber porch. The S nave windows are largely ofc.1300 with Y-tracery, although there are remade round-headed windows at either end, and the remains of a blocked window immediately E of the porch. The priory church had short transepts with E chapels at the W end of the chancel, and an apsidal E end (discovered by excavation, see Fairweather (1927)). The transepts were apparently removed in a remodelling ofc.1300, when chapels were added further E and a square-ended presbytery. Finally the chapels were removed, although their blocked arches remain, now housing small windows. The presbytery was removed and the present E wall with its five-light flowing tracery window was built in 1868. Pevsner suggests that this window is a copy of what was there before. Three restorations are known after that of 1868. In 1905-07 there were general repairs to the walls and roof by E. H. Sedding of Plymouth, in 1932-34 more general repairs were carried out under H. M. Cautley, and in 1950 the contractors Cubitt and Gotts cariied out unspecified repairs. In one or other of these campaigns the side walls of the chancel and the E end of the nave were repaired or raised with courses of red brick. The S doorway is an important Romanesque feature, not least because of its inscription naming the original dedication of the priory church, and the church also has an elaborately arcaded late-12thc. font. The author is grateful to John Higgitt for his advice about the inscription.
8. All Saints, Great Thurlow, Suffolk, England

Parish church
The villages of Great and Little Thurlow are in the Stour valley N of Haverhill; their churches only half a mile apart. All Saints, Great Thurlow is alongside the Hall. It has an aisled and clerestoried nave, a short chancel with a N vestry and a W tower. The 15thc. nave arcades are of four bays, carried on lozenge-shaped piers without capitals into which the arch mouldings die without any transition. The square-headed clerestory windows are Perpendicular too. The nave has north and south doorways, the north under a porch. The chancel is very short and 12thc in its fabric, with external shafts at its eastern angles, but it was heavily restored in the 19thc and given a new chancel arch, and it retains no original windows. The roofs of both nave and chancel have been raised, apparently for purely decorative purposes, since the tower shows the scar of a taller and steeper nave on its east face. Liturgically the presbytery has been given an extra bay by inserting a step opposite the first nave piers and by screening off the east aisle bays for use as an organ chamber (N) and a chapel (S). The west tower may be late 14thc, although its diagonal buttresses appear to be added. Its bell openings are no help; the north is 15thc, the south and east apparently 14thc and the west 19thc.. and an embattled parapet. On top of the tower is a neo-classical bell-cote of lead. The exterior nave and aisle walls are embattled too, and the church is faced with flint. The angle shafts of the chancel provide the only signs of Romanesque fabric, but there is a reset stone carved with a cable moulding reset in the west wall of the north aisle, and the font is 12thc too.
9. St Mary, Hawkedon, Suffolk, England

Parish church
St Mary’s has an aisleless nave, chancel and W tower. The nave has a S doorway under an attractive flint and brick porch, and a blocked N doorway. Nave and chancel are 14thc., and the nave has a wooden organ gallery at the W end by Detmar Blow (1912). The tower is 14thc. too, with diagonal buttresses at the W. Construction is of flint, once rendered but much of the rendering has gone now. The font is the only Romanesque feature.
10. All Saints, Hawstead, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Hawstead is a village in the hundred of Thingoe, some 3 miles S of the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The church stands on a by-road at the NW end of the village, alongside Church Farm, and Hawstead Hall is half a mile from the church, to the NE. All Saints' is a big church consisting of a broad aisleless nave with a S porch, a lower chancel with a N vestry and a W tower. Nave and tower are of knapped flints with stone dressings; the E gable of the nave rebuilt in brick. The chancel is of flint and septaria and the vestry of flint with brick repairs. The nave is substantially of the 15th-16thc., and has Perpendicular windows and buttresses decorated with flushwork panels, but the N and S doorways are 12thc. work, clearly re-set. Inside is a fine 16thc. hammerbeam angel roof, unfortunately mutilated during the civil war of the 17thc. and over-restored in 1858. The S porch is 15thc. The chancel has a blocked round-headed window towards the W end of the S wall, indicating 12thc. fabric. It was re-modelled and probably lengthened in the early 13thc. (plain N and S lancets), and other windows date from all periods fromc.1300 to the 15thc. The chancel arch was heavily restored in the 19thc. The tower is of one campaign, completedc.1500. It has a polygonal S stair, diagonal W buttresses with flushwork panels, and more intricate flushwork on the battlemented parapet. Above the W doorway is a frieze bearing the arms of Sir Robert Drury and his family's alliances by marriage. Hawstead church is mainly celebrated for its monuments: a late-13thc. knight effigy reputed to be Sir Eustace fitzEustace; tombs of the Drury family dating from the 16thc. and early 17thc., and the overblown Italianate tomb of Sir Thomas Cullum (d.1664).
11. All Saints, Hemley, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Hemley is on the estuary of the River Deben in SE Suffolk, 4 miles from its mouth. The village is on the W side of the estuary, where the flat, marshy land alongside the river begins to rise to a sandy, arable landscape. Hemley was formerly a port and a centre of salt manufacture but nothing of this remains; only the church, Hemley Hall half a mile to the N, and a few houses clustered around the end of a lane from Newbourne that stops at the edge of the marshes. The church had fallen into disrepair by the 19thc. and was largely rebuilt in 1889. It consists of a W tower and a nave and chancel of mixed knapped flints, septaria and assorted stone rubble, decoratively laid with the effect of crazy paving. Nave and chancel are similar height and width (though separately roofed), and separated by a wooden chancel arch on corbels. The nave has a 14thc. S doorway under a timber-framed porch dated 1889. The blocked N doorway is ofc.1300. All the windows are 19thc., in a variety of styles of the later 13thc. and early 14thc. The tower is of red brick with blue brick diapering and may date fromc.1500. The only Romanesque feature is a Purbeck marble font.
12. St Michael, Hunston, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Hunston is nearly 8 miles E of the centre of Bury St Edmunds in flattish farmland, mostly arable. The village lies on the minor road linking it with Stowlangtoft, Badwell Ash and Walsham-le-Willows, and the church stands in farmland 0.3 miles S of the village centre. It is in the grounds of the former hall, but this is now gone and there are farm buildings S of the church. St Michael's has a W tower, nave with S transept and chancel. The tower is of knapped flint and dates from the 14thc. The nave, chancel and transept are of flint in mortar. The nave is 13thc, with N and S doorways of that period, the S under a timber porch. There is a blocked 13thc. S window and the N windows are 14th and 15thc. work. The transept has a W doorway, E windows and a double piscina, all of the 13thc. The chancel and its arch are 13thc. too, but its roof has been heightened with brick and it was restored in 1887. A carved 12thc. window head is reused in the masonry of the chancel N wall, and the author thanks Colin Myram for alerting him to its presence. The plain font is also said to be 12thc.
13. St Peter, Ipswich, Suffolk, England

Parish church (redundant)
The area around St Peter's is historically one of the most interesting in the town. On College Street stood the Augustinian Priory of St Peter and St Paul until 1527, when Cardinal Wolsey founded his Cardinal College of St Mary on the site. It was not completed, but a gateway survives. St Peter's Street itself runs S from the town centre and boasts a good collection of timber-framed shops and houses. St Peter's is at the southern end of the street, at an intersection of the inner ring road. Beyond it to the S are derelict waterfront warehouses standing on the dockside. Its present position is by no means attractive, therefore, but work is under way on the regeneration of the waterfront, and St Peter's is likely to benefit from them. It was made redundant in 1979 along with three other town centre churches, and the Ipswich Historic Churches Trust was founded at the same time to ensure their maintenance and preservation. In 1981 these four churches, St Lawrence, St Peter, St Clement and St Stephen, were passed to the Borough Council by the Church Commissioners for a nominal sum and then offered to the Ipswich Historic Churches Trust on long leases. The intention was that the Trust would undertake repairs and find appropriate new uses.
14. St Michael, Tunstall, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Tunstall is a good-sized village in E Suffolk, towards the S, 7 miles NE of Woodbridge and 6 miles from the coast. The landscape here is flat arable and heathland. To the E is Tunstall forest and to the S the disused Bentwaters airfield. The church stands alongside the main street at the eastern end of the village.
15. St John the Baptist, Wantisden, Suffolk, England

Parish church
St John's is a remote church standing in flat arable land in SE Suffolk, 6 miles E of Woodbridge. There is no village and no dwellings near the church; the nearest settlement being Tunstall, a mile to the N. Wantisden Hall, a 16thc. brick building, is 0.6 mile S of the church. There has apparently never been a village of Wantisden, and at the beginning of the Second World War the entire area was requisitioned as an airfield: the USAF Bentwaters base. It remained active during the Cold War, and was closed in 1993, but much remains to the W of the church. The church is significant in having one of only two coralline crag towers in the county (the other is at nearby Chillesford), a 15thc. structure with diagonal buttresses and a polygonal S bell stair whose top has been rebuilt without battlements. The nave and chancel are of mixed flint, pebbles and crag rubble. They are 12thc. and from that period they retain a narrow chancel arch, a N chancel window and a S nave doorway. The N doorway is later, plain and pointed, and neither doorway has a porch. The nave has a later medieval SE rood stair, and the other nave and chancel windows date from the 14thc. to 15thc. There is also a 12thc. font, unusual in being constructed of ashlar blocks.
16. St Mary Magdalene, Withersdale, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Withersdale is nearly 3 miles E of Harleston and a mile and a half from the river Waveney, which marks the border with Norfolk. The church stands alongside the B1123 and the moated hall site, with a medieval farmhouse, is 500 yards (457 metres) to the S. The rest of the village has migrated W along the road towards Harleston, forming the settlement of Withersdale Street.