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1. St Peter, Holton, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Holton is on the northern slope of the Blyth valley; the village has been engulfed by the westward spread of Halesworth, and although its churchyard setting is spacious, the surroundings are industrial. Holton is home to one of Bernard Matthews' three UK turkey processing factories.
2. 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.
3. St Nicholas, Little Saxham, Suffolk, England

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.
4. Holy Trinity, Middleton, Suffolk, England

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 Peter, Moulton, Suffolk, England

Parish church
St Peter's was originally a 12thc. building with angle shafts at the four corners of the nave, partly surviving. Two-bay aisles and short transepts have been added, and the nave roof raised and supplied with a tall clerestorey. All this is early 16thc. work, as is the light and airy chancel. There is a W tower ofc.1300 with a battlement, which looks short and stumpy against the heightened nave. The church was restored in 1850, and the S porch dates from that period. Construction is of flint, the clerestorey rendered. The nave angle shafts are described here, together with a figural relief slab now housed in a curtained-off vestry at the W end of the S aisle.
6. St Andrew, Mutford, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Mutford is in NE Suffolk, set in low, rolling arable and pasture land 5 miles SW of the centre of Lowestoft. The village consists of houses and farms built alongside a network of narrow lanes with no particular focal point. The church is towards the N of the settlement, with Mutford Hall three-quarters of a mile to the SW, outside the village and alongside the stream called the Hundred River. St Andrew's stands on rising ground, and consists of a nave with a S aisle and S porch, a chancel and a round W tower with a W Galilee porch. The nave is of flint and where a N doorway might be expected, a 15thc. window has been inserted, one of two on this side. A wallpainting of At Christopher survives on the N wall; once part of a more extensive cycle. The early-14thc. S aisle has a four-bay arcade on slender, octagonal piers and windows characteristic of that date. The S doorway is also 14thc., under a 19thc. flint and ashlar porch. The aisle was originally connected to a chapel on the S side of the chancel, but this was removed in the 18thc, and the E aisle wall was rebuilt in brick. The arch from the chancel was similarly bricked up. Another blocked arch on the N side of the chancel indicates that there was once a chapel there too. The chancel itself is 14thc., of flint, rendered on the N side. Its E window has flowing tracery, and there are diagonal E buttresses with flushwork decoration, and flushwork arcading on the E chancel plinth. The W tower is tall and slender; round at the bottom with a 15thc. octagonal upper storey. Its bell-openings have lost their tracery, but flushwork pseudo-tracery on the alternating faces give an idea of their form. There is a battlemented parapet, also decorated with flushwork. The lower storey may be pre-Conquest. It contains two blocked, round-headed openings on the N face and two on the S, while on the W are two pointed lancets that may replace earlier openings. In the blocking of the lower S window is a chevron voussoir. To the W is the Galilee; 14thc. in its present form and said to be the only one in the country attached to a round tower. Built into the N interior nave wall towards the E end is a tomb recess with a chevron-decorated arch. The arch is certainly not original to the tomb. Pevsner offers two suggestions; that it was part of the 12thc. chancel arch, or that it was the arch from the tower to the W Galilee, which Suckling described as Norman in 1846. This postulates a lost Norman Galilee, of course, a tantalising idea. In 1927-36 general repairs to roofs, walls, seating and porch were carried out by W. Weir of Letchworth. The ceiling of the church was raised in 1926 and completely removed in 1974, exposing the roof beams, which were then restored. The Galilee was ruinous and ivy-covered in 1933 and was restored in the following year. The interior of the tower was restored in 1976, and the aisle roof leaded and its beams strengthened in 2004.
7. St Mary, Nettlestead, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Nettlestead is a tiny settlement, just the church and a few houses, in rolling farmland 5 miles NW of the centre of Suffolk. When David Elisha Davy visited in the early 19thc. he noted the remains of the hall nearby. To the W of the church is the pasture of Church Meadow, and to the S a pond with a stream that runs into the river Gipping near Bramford, W of Ipswich.
8. St Michael, Oulton, Suffolk, England

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.
9. St Mary, Santon Downham, Suffolk, England

Parish church
The village stands on the southern bank of the Little Ouse that forms the boundary with Norfolk. The tiny village of Santon, which was subsumed into the parish in 1963, is over the river in Norfolk. Santon Downham is in the middle of Thetford forest and is now the home of the headquarters of the Forestry Commission for the East Anglian district. Downham Hall, N of the church, near the river, was the focus of a sporting estate until the early years of the 20thc., but the Mackenzie heir sold up in 1918, the Forestry Commission acquired the land in1924, and the hall was demolished from 1925. New houses for the Commission workers were built around the green, to the W of the church, in the 1950s, effectively shifting the village centre to the SW. Between 1920 and 1970 Santon Downham was almost entirely devoted to forestry, with almost all of its male inhabitants employed by the Commission. Since the '70s many of the residents have exercised their right to buy their houses, and less than one in twenty of the 250 present inhabitants work in forestry. The area was anciently dominated by warrens, with Santon Warren to the N, Santon Downham Warren to the S. These were set up in the Middle Ages (see Preface to Suffolk), often by the monastic houses of Ely and Bury. As at Lakenheath, the sandy soil was prey to sandstorms, especially if it was overgrazed by the rabbits, and one such engulfed the village of Santon Downham over a period of several decades, culminating in 1668.
10. 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.
11. St Peter, Theberton, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Theberton is a small village in east Suffolk, 3 miles E of Saxmundham and 2½ from the sea. It stands on a rise in the low country SW of the marshy Minsmere Level, with the church in the centre of the village and Theberton Hall 0.3 mile away to the NW. St Peter's consists of a nave and chancel in one with a thatched single roof, a S aisle and S porch at the W end of the nave, a modern brick vestry covering the N doorway, also at the W end of the nave, and a round W tower. The 12thc. church consisted of the present nave without its aisle and the western section of the chancel. A corbel table survives from this, occupying the western part of the chancel on both sides, and there is a 12thc. string course on the N side of the chancel only. The N nave doorway survives inside the modern vestry, and there is a 12thc. window, now blocked, in the N wall of the nave. The round tower is 12thc. too, although the octagonal upper story was addedc.1300. It has Y-tracery bell openings on its cardinal faces, and similar Y-tracery flushwork on the intermediate faces. The tower arch was replaced around the same time. The 15thc. embattled parapet also has flushwork decoration. A W window was inserted in the tower in the 15thc. The chancel may have been lengthenedc.1300, using a mixed facing of flints and reused material, including shaft sections and broken plain corbels. The S priest's doorway dates from this time, as does the Y-tracery N window inserted in the western section of the chancel. Its companion on the S side is 15thc., and those in the eastern section are 16thc. with brick mullions and arches. The E wall has been rebuilt in a curious mixture of flint, stone rubble and brick, more or less decoratively arranged. It contains a three-light 19thc. window in a Perpendicular style. Returning to the nave, a short S aisle with a porch at its W end was added in the 15thc. but the aisle was rebuilt by L. N. Cottingham under the patronage of the Rev. C. M. Doughty of Theberton Hall in 1846. This aisle is now called the Doughty Chapel, and its arcade is painted. Romanesque sculpture is found on the N doorway, the blocked N window, the chancel corbel table and the string course below it.
12. St Mary Magdalene, Westerfield, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Westerfield is a village at the northern edge of Ipswich, where the town gives way to arable farmland. It clusters around a crossroads where a minor road cuts the B1077 that meanders N from Ipswich to Debenham and Eye. The church is on the lesser road, just E of the crossroads, and consists of an unaisled and mortar rendered nave and chancel in one, without a chancel arch, and a W tower. The nave and chancel windows all have two-light intersecting tracery ofc.1300 except for two 13thc chancel windows, the S one blocked. There is no S doorway; a 12thc. doorway in the normal position having been blocked in a major restoration of 1867, and its carved stones reset inside the church in the sill, arch and jambs of the window that replaced it. This window is a copy of others in the nave, and alongside remains the stoup, which would originally have been in the porch next to the doorway. Henry Davy's etching of the exterior in 1842 shows that the doorway was protected by a small embattled porch, described by David Elisha Davy in 1829 as being modern and of red brick. On the N side of the church is a flint Church Room, with a hall, vestry and kitchen. This was built in 1986-87 and provides access to the church through the N nave doorway. It replaced a brick schoolroom, added to the nave in 1840, which was successively a school, a Sunday school and a vestry before it was taken down in 1986. A vestry on the S side of the chancel was taken down in 1840 when the schoolroom was added. The W tower is of flint with diagonal buttresses at the W but none at the E. It has an embattled parapet with flushwork decoration. The tower may date fromc.1300, but its W doorway and window are 15thc. Its bell openings have lost their tracery. The interior is dominated by a magnificent hammerbeam roof, continuous over nave and chancel. The only 12thc work surviving here are voussoirs from the old S doorway, now reset in the SW nave window surrounds, and two carved stones reused in the exterior walls of the tower.
13. St Andrew, Westhall, Suffolk, England

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.
14. St Mary, Wissington, Suffolk, England

Parish church
Wissington (also known, most notably on the signpost to the church, as Wiston) is a parish of dispersed houses and farms on the N side of the river Stour, which forms the border with Essex. It has no village centre, although there are a few houses and a farmhouse near the church. This stands on raised ground in a moated site alongside the farmhouse. St Mary's is a simple two-cell church with a rectangular nave and a lower, narrower chancel with an apsidal E end. The present apse and its arch are entirely 19thc., but built on 12thc. foundations; a view of 1832 shows the church with a flat E end. The S priest's doorway in the chancel straight bay is 19thc., but this bay also has small 12thc. lancets and its original chancel arch, elaborately carved with chevron archivolts and decorated nook-shafts. The nave has carved 12thc. N and S doorways; the S under a timber porch, and the N now inside the 19thc. vestry. Small round-headed lancets survive in the N and S nave walls, but all of the nook-shafted windows, in both nave and chancel, are 19thc. work. Over the W gable of the nave is a 19thc. timber bell-turret with a pyramid roof. The church is of flint, the exterior mortar rendered and the interior plastered, with the remains of 13thc.-15thc. wallpaintings in the nave. Four 12thc. corbels have been re-set in the interior and exterior walls; one over the chancel arch, one over the apse arch, and on the outside, one above each of the chancel straight bay windows. There are several loose stones, at present behind the pulpit. The only one with 12thc. carving is a nook-shaft base.