Ufford is a substantial village in SE Suffolk, clustering around a
network of by-roads off the old road from Woodbridge to Wickham Market, and now
bounded to the W by the new road - the A12 Ufford by-pass. To the E of the
village the river Deben flows from N to S, and the church overlooks the
pastures of its water meadow.
St Mary's is a substantial flint church of nave with S aisle and S
porch, chancel with N
vestry and W tower. The nave appears 15thc.; it is
tall with Perpendicular clerestories on both sides, despite on having an aisle
on the S. There is 11th -12thc. herringbone masonry on
the N wall, however, and one N window has Y-tracery ofc.1300, so its
Perpendicular appearance results from a remodelling rather than a complete
rebuild. This included the nave roof, with embattled
tie beams, every alternate one of which has been curtailed at each end
and finished with an angel (perhaps in the 18thc.) to look like hammerbeams.
The base of the rood
screen
and the rood beam above also survive and date from the
same period. The S aisle has a four-bay
arcade; the two E bays are early
13thc. with cylindrical piers and round moulded
capitals, and the two W bays with octagonal
piers and capitals. All the arches are pointed and of
two chamfered
porch
orders. The aisle windows are 15thc. and the 15thc. S is of
knapped flint with elaborate flushwork and sculptural ornament. The
chancel arch and tower arch are both 15thc. The
chancel has a 13thc. angle piscina and dropped sill
sedilia, but its windows are again 15thc.
The S chancel doorway is something of a puzzle.
Its arch is tall and pointed with a double fluted
chamfer and its label is a
13thc. type with elongated human head label stops, but
its capitals are a 12thc. flat-leaf type and do not fit very well. It is
described in full below. The doorway from the chancel
into the shed-like flint and brick vestry provides
another enigma. It is round headed, and Pevsner calls it a reused Norman
doorway, but the profile of the continuous arch and jambs belongs to the 14thc.
rather than the 12thc. This too is described below.
The flint W tower may be 14thc., but if so it has undergone the same
15thc. remodelling as the rest of the church. Its W window and tall three-light
bell-openings are Perpendicular, although the W doorway is simpler than might
be expected and could be earlier. It has diagonal buttresses with chequered
flushwork, and they run right up the tower to terminate in pinnacles at the corners of the embattled
parapet. There is a polygonal stair on the S wall.
St Mary's is celebrated above all for its font cover, a multi-storeyed
tapering octagonal construction with flying buttresses, tracery panels and
figures in niches that reaches up to the roof timbers
and terminates in a pelican. Cautley has called it 'the most beautiful in the
world', and it would be difficult to
disagree.