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1. 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.
2. 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.
3. All Saints, Kenton, Suffolk, England

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. St Mary, Kettlebaston, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Kettlebaston is a tiny, remote village in west Suffolk, 3 miles E of Lavenham and 11 miles SE of Bury St Edmunds. It stands on a hill in rolling arable land and consists of a cluster of houses around the church. The bright interior of St Mary's, with its rood screen painted with figures of saints by Enid Chadwick in 1954, flanked by altars to the Virgin and the Sacred Heart, betrays its Anglo-Catholic background, and until the retirement of Father H. C. Butler in 1964 the Roman Mass was said here every day. The church consists of a nave, chancel and W tower. The late-12thc S doorway, under an 18thc. brick porch, and one blocked N window testify to the Romanesque origins of the nave. The remaining windows are 15thc., and the N doorway is plain and probablyc.1300. Inside, there is a rood stair to the NE of the nave, and the splay of the blocked N window has 13thc. foliage wallpainting. The nave is of flint, newly mortar-rendered at the W end of the S wall, and with traces of old render on the N. Brick buttresses have been added to N and S. The chancel is of flint and very long, with old mortar render on the N wall and a brick vestry added there too. The chancel is apparentlyc.1300 in origin; the sedilia and piscina date from this time, and there is a 14thc. Easter Sepulchre on the north side. One of the S windows is 14thc. too - an unusual two-light composition with ogee heads, but the remainder are either 15thc. (one N window partly blocked by the vestry) or 19thc. replacements. The three-light reticulated E window is a replacement. The W tower is of flint and has diagonal buttresses, a polygonal stair on the S and a battlemented parapet. Its bell-openings are reticulated, and the tower arch also indicates a 14thc date. It once had a small spire. The church is recorded to have been built anew in 1363 (Tricker), and this work apparently included the rebuilding of the chancel and the construction of the tower. There were repairs to the chancel (1864) and the nave (1879). There was a restoration including repairs to the roofs and floors by H. J. Wright of Ipswich in 1901-02, and in 1902-03 the chancel was reordered to the designs of the Anglo-Catholic priest / architect, Ernest Geldart. restorations in 1922 and 1924-25 by Hunt and Coates of Bury St Edmunds, aimed at repairing the nave walls and the roof, and underpinning the chancel east wall, and further repairs in 1943-44, 1951-52 (by B. A. Hatcher of Ipswich) and 1963-64 (by Caroe and Partners). Romanesque sculpture is found on the south nave doorway, and there is a carved 12thc. box font that, unusually, retains its staples and still has a lockable lid (dating from 1929).
5. St Peter, Little 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. St Peter's has an aisled nave with four-bay arcades and clerestories with oculi. The chancel has a N chapel with a two-bay arcade to the main vessel, built in 1621 to house the spectacular wall-tomb of Sir Stephen Soame (d.1619). The W tower is of two storeys with angle buttresses and dates from the 14thc. in its lower parts. Its bell openings and embattled parapet with flint chequer-work are Perpendicular. The tower is flint faced, as is the entire church except for the mortar-rendered clerestorey, the battlemented Soame chapel (of brick with mortar rendering) and the N porch (of brick). None of the fabric postdates the later 13thc. The church boasts three 13thc. piscinae; one in the chancel and one in each nave aisle, indicating that the aisles were built as chapels. The nave arcades and chancel arch are of c.1300, the tower arch is Perpendicular, N clerestory is 17thc. and the S 19thc. The only Romanesque feature is the font, carved with stylised foliage.
6. St Peter, Milden, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Milden is situated in arable farmland on the rising ground on the S side of the Lavenham Brook, a tributary of the river Brett, some 5 miles NE of Sudbury towards the S of mid-Suffolk. In the field immediately to the S of the church, once glebe land, a stone marks the second highest point in the county (82 m, 269 ft) It is a dispersed settlement, sparsely populated, extending approximately 1¼ miles from Milden Hall in the W, with the motte of a 12thc. castle nearby, to the church in the E.
7. St Mary, Naughton, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Naughton is a village in the rolling arable farmland of S central Suffolk, 9 miles W of the centre of Ipswich. It consists of houses with the church and a moated site at a junction of two minor roads just off the B1078 Sudbury to Needham Market road. Naughton Hall, alongside the church, is now a 17thc. building. A second moated site is 0.3 miles SW of the church and there are farms outside the village. St Mary's has a nave, chancel and W tower. The flint W tower is two storeys high and has a blocked round-headed window on the S side in the lower storey. This may thus be 12thc, but the upper storey has Y-tracery bell-openings ofc.1300. There is an embattled parapet. The W window is a replacement in 15thc. style, and the tower arch is pointed with mouldings dying into the embrasures. Nave and chancel are mortar-rendered, and all their windows are stylistically ofc.1300 except for one late-13thc. plate-tracery window in the chancel S wall, one with a cusped head in the nave S wall, and a 15thc. window in the chancel S wall. The chancel arch is 14th-15thc. There is a 14thc. piscina with a cusped arch towards the E end of the nave on the S wall, indicating the presence of an altar. The chancel piscina is ofc.1300. The S nave doorway is protected by a rendered porch, while the 13thc. N doorway has been blocked and fitted with a window. Set in the window splay is a 12thc. font that has been cut down, and this is the only Romanesque sculpture here.
8. St Michael, Peasenhall, Suffolk, England

Chapel
Peasenhall stands in hilly arable land in E Suffolk, between Saxmundham and Halesworth. The village is clustered around the crossing of two Roman roads. One is now the A1120 and the other formerly linked Harleston and Saxmundham. The church stands at the crossroads in the centre of the village and immediately to the S is the factory of Smyth and Sons. James Smyth invented an improved seed drill in 1800, and his vigorous promotion of a genuinely better product led to expansion within the village and to the building of workers' terraced housing, as his drills became the brand leader throughout southern England. Smyth's enterprise is the reason for the unusual presence in rural Suffolk of what is essentially an industrial village. The surrounding land was always farmed, but the farmhouses are now outside the village centre.
9. St Mary, Poslingford, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Poslingford is in the SW corner of Suffolk, 2 miles N of the Essex border and 6 miles E of Haverhill. The village lies in the valley of a stream that runs S into the Stour at Clare, and a road following the same course forms the High Street. The church is in the village centre alongside this road, on the rising ground on the W side, and Poslingford Hall is immediately to the S of it.
10. St Mary, Preston St Mary, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Preston St Mary is in the rolling arable land between Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury, towards the W of the county. The nearest town is Lavenham, 2 miles to the W. Preston stands on a low hill above a stream to the E that runs S into the river Brett. It is an attractive village; its main street occupied by houses and a pub, with the church at its southern end, facing the street and alongside the hall. St Mary's has an aisled nave with a N porch, chancel with N vestry and W tower. The nave has a 15thc. clerestory and three-bay aisles with 15thc. windows. The N porch is 15thc. too, but very elaborate with flushwork decoration, niches on the buttresses and a battlemented parapet. The chancel is 14thc. in its details, with one reticulated N window and flowing tracery in the E and S windows. The N vestry is 19thc., with a N window with Perpendicular-style tracery. The tower has diagonal buttresses to the E, a polygonal SE bell-stair and a battlemented parapet with gargoyles below. The W face has a 15thc. doorway with kings as label stops and niches to either side and above for statuary. The bell openings are two-light reticulated with triangular heads. The nave, aisles and chancel are of flint, septaria and reused brick or tile - a typical Suffolk mixture. The tower is of roughly-knapped flints. The church contains an important early Romanesque font.
11. All Saints, South Elmham All Saints, Suffolk, England

Parish church (redundant)
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. All Saints is the easternmost of the South Elmham villages, consisting of some twenty houses and three or four farms on a triangle of lanes. The church and Church Farm, with a 17thc. moated farmhouse, lie off the road to St Cross more than half a mile W of this cluster. A further half mile to the W was the church of South Elmham St Nicholas, now entirely demolished, although traceried windows at St Peter's Hall may have come from there (see South Elmham St Peter). The parish of All Saints was united with St Nicholas in 1557, by 1620 St Nicholas's church was abandoned, and in 1737 the combined parish of South Elmham All Saints-cum-St Nicholas was formed based at All Saints. In 1978 All Saints was declared redundant and its care was assumed by what is now the Churches Conservation Trust.
12. St James, South Elmham St James, Suffolk, England

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.
13. St Margaret, Syleham, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Syleham is 6 miles E of Diss; the church standing alongside the river Waveney which forms the Norfolk border. The land is largely arable country of low hills, but cattle graze in the pastures by the river. The church stands alone, the rest of the village standing on a low hill 0.7 miles to the SE.
14. St Martin, Trimley St Martin, Suffolk, England

Parish church
The Trimleys, St Martin and St Mary, are adjoining parishes on the NW outskirts of Felixstowe. Together they make an elongated settlement bounded on the E and S by the A14, and on the W by Trimley Marshes and the Orwell estuary. Plans for expansion to the W and between the two villages are driven by the need for extra housing for Felixstowe, but they are meeting vigorous local opposition. The churches of St Martin and St Mary stand at the edges of their parishes, side-by-side on the high street that runs through the centre of both villages. There was once a wall between the two churchyards, corresponding to the parish boundary, but this has gone now. Although both churches are still consecrated, St Martin's is maintained for liturgical use, while St Mary's is largely given over to community activities. St Martin's has a nave with a transeptal N chapel and a S porch, a chancel with a N vestry and a S organ room, and a W tower. The mortar-rendered nave appears to date from the early 14thc., to judge from the N and S doorways (the S now under a 20thc. brick and timber porch). The nave windows are 19thc. replacements in an early-14thc. style. The N transept is separated from the nave by a two-bay arcade. It is of brick with replacement windows in 15thc. style. The N gable has been rebuilt using modern brick. The chancel is also of brick and is entirely 19thc., including the vestry with its mortar-rendered N extension, and the rendered S organ room. The 15thc. tower is of brick, rendered on all faces except the E. It has a battlemented parapet and diagonal W buttresses, also of brick and unrendered. The only feature that may be Romanesque is the font.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.