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All Saints, Little Bradley, Suffolk

Location
(52°8′29″N, 0°27′23″E)
Little Bradley
TL 682 521
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Suffolk
now Suffolk
  • Ron Baxter
14 June 2005

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Description

The villages of Great and Little Bradley are in the Stour valley N of Haverhill; their churches less than a mile apart. All Saints has an aisleless nave, chancel and W tower. The nave is 12thc., with a plain Romanesque chancel arch and a 12thc. S doorway under a flint and timber porch. Its N doorway has been replaced by a 19thc. window. The eastern part of the chancel is early 12thc., with two plain lancets in the N wall (one blocked) and signs of two more in the E wall. The western section of the chancel has thicker walls and is presumably 11thc. The original eastern angles are visible on the present side walls, indicating that the original chancel was lower as well as shorter. Mortlock claims that there is long and short work here, but it is a later repair. At the W end of the nave, the tower arch is small enough to be called a doorway (and it was fitted with a door and a wooden tympanum to square off the opening in the 16thc.) This leads to a W tower, circular and presumably 11thc. in its lower stage, with flint course laid in herringbone patterns, and octagonal above, with a battlement with double stepped merlons. There are plain round-headed lancets in the lower walls to N, S and W, but they are all restored. Construction is of flint, with herringbone work on the lower part of the tower and the western part of the chancel. Romanesque work reported here is in the chancel arch, the tower arch and the S doorway.

History

Great and Little Bradley comprised three holdings in 1086. St Edmund's abbey held one, consisting of two parcels of 60 acres held from the abbey by a total of 12 free men. Richard fitzGilbert held a second holding, and four free men, Wulfwine, Leofric, Leofwine and Bondi from him. The third was Robert de Tosny's demesne holding of 7 carucates, held before the Conquest by Thegn Ulf. This is assumed to be Great Bradley. The church of Little Bradley was given by Albrinus, son of Ercald, to Stoke by Clare, originally a cell of Bec, and later a collegiate church. The manor was held by Thomas Knighton at the Dissolution, and the church contains a brass, reputedly of his son, also Thomas (d.1532). Monuments to Richard le Hunt (d.1540) and John and Jane le Hunte (1605); and a brass of Thomas and Elizabeth Soame (1612) indicate later lords of Little Bradley.

Stourhead benefice, i.e. Barnardiston, Great and Little Bradley, Great and Little Thurlow, Great and Little Wratting and Kedington.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches
Tower/Transept arches
Comments/Opinions

All the Romanesque work here is extremely plain, but the church itself is of interest owing to the evidence of two separate campaigns before the early 12thc.

Bibliography

Victoria County History: Suffolk II (1975), 154-55.

D. P. Mortlock, The Popular Guide to Suffolk Churches: 1 W Suffolk. Cambridge 1988, 140-41.

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Suffolk. Harmondsworth 1961, rev. E. Radcliffe 1975, 335.