The villages of Great and Little Thurlow are in the Stour valley N of Haverhill; their churches only half a mile apart. St Peter's has an aisled nave with four-bay arcades and clerestories with oculi. The chancel has a N chapel with a two-bay arcade to the main vessel, built in 1621 to house the spectacular wall-tomb of Sir Stephen Soame (d.1619). The W tower is of two storeys with angle buttresses and dates from the 14thc. in its lower parts. Its bell openings and embattled parapet with flint chequer-work are Perpendicular. The tower is flint faced, as is the entire church except for the mortar-rendered clerestorey, the battlemented Soame chapel (of brick with mortar rendering) and the N porch (of brick). None of the fabric postdates the later 13thc. The church boasts three 13thc. piscinae; one in the chancel and one in each nave aisle, indicating that the aisles were built as chapels. The nave arcades and chancel arch are of c.1300, the tower arch is Perpendicular, N clerestory is 17thc. and the S 19thc. The only Romanesque feature is the font, carved with stylised foliage.

Great and Little Thurlow (7 carucates) were held by Edith, a free woman, in the time of Edward the Confessor; the manor including arable land, meadow and woodland, and supporting pigs, cattle, sheep and goats. It contained a church with 32 acres of land. In 1086 it had passed to the king. A smaller holding of 95 acres was in the hands of nine free men in 1086, the soke belonging to St Edmund's Abbey. Another carucate was held by 10 free men from Richard fitzGilbert; this also including a church with 29 acres, and finally Widard held 25 acres, also from Richard fitzGilbert, formerly held by two sokemen of Eadgifu. Little Thurlow is assumed to be Richard fitzGilbert's holding.

At the Dissolution, Little Thurlow was held by the Abbot of Bury St Edmund's. It had passed to Sir Stephen Soame by 1582, and the family continued to live at the hall until the line failed in 1889. In this period, the two manors of Great and Little Thurlow effectively became one, under Soame's lordship. The manor then passed to the Soame Jenyns (a collateral line), who sold the estate to Charles Foster Ryder, the father of Baroness Ryder of Warsaw (1923-2000). It is now part of the Vestey estate.

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

The font is by the carvers of the unfinished and mutilated one at Hawkedon.