Stanningfield is in central W Suffolk, 5 miles S of the centre of Bury St Edmunds, in the rolling farmland typical of this part of the county. The Roman road that forms part of the A134 from Bury to Sudbury runs a mile to the E of the village, which consists of scattered dwellings and farm buildings on a network of by-roads. The centre, such as it is, has migrated half a mile east to Hoggards Green, leaving the church surrounded by just a few houses. The seat of the lords of Stanningfield was at Coldham Hall, 0.8 mile SW of the church. St Nicholas's is a flint church with a W tower, a nave with a wooden S porch and a chancel. The nave is 12thc, judging from the small round-headed windows in the lateral walls and the blocked N doorway, but Y-tracery windows and a new S doorway were addedc.1300. The chancel, of the same height and width as the nave, dates from the same period. Its arch is tall and it has interesting tracery combining geometrical and intersecting features in its N, S and E windows. The S priest's doorway is blocked. On the N side stands the tomb of Thomas Rokewood (d.1521) with the shields of Rokewood and Clopton (Thomas's wife's family) in quatrefoils on the chest. The tower is low and of irregular knapped flints with brick and tile incorporated. It has a plinth and heavy integral buttresses, diagonal at the W and straight at the E, and a square SE stair. The W window is three-light Perpendicular with a transom. The bell-openings are simple lancets with triangular heads and the roof is pyramidal and slate-covered. The tower was taller, but the upper stage was removed when it became unstable in the 1880s, and the roof and bell-openings date from that period. Only the N doorway is recorded here.
