Little Whelnetham stands in the rolling countryside of the Lark valley,
some 3 miles SE of the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The village amounts to a
cluster of houses and farm buildings on the road from Sicklesmere to Bradfield
St George. Curiously, Great Whelnetham its nearest neighbour, belongs to a
different benefice.
The church stands on the road through the village. Immediately to the E
of the present chancel are the rubble remains of what
may have been a round tower. If so, the present church was built to the W of an
earlier one, but Pevsner suggests that it may not have been a W tower at all,
but a separate watch tower, or an apsidal chapel. St Mary Magdalene's is of
flint with a W tower, nave and chancel. The earliest
feature is a 12thc. pillar piscina, set in the S nave
wall near the E end. It could, therefore, have served an altar against the E
nave wall but it may be reset. The nave itself is 15thc. in all its windows and
N and S doorways. The S doorway is set under a 15th-16thc. brick
porch. The chancel has a plain
13thc. priest's doorway, piscina and aumbry. Its windows and chancel arch
are 14thc. The tower is 14thc. too, to judge from the flowing W window. Its
bell-openings have been replaced, and a battlemented brick parapet added. The
pillar piscina is the only Romanesque feature.