The Creetings are a pair of villages standing in rolling land of mixed
cultivation two to three miles E of Stowmarket. There were once four churches;
St Mary's, St Olave's, St Peter's and All Saints'. The first two were
originally small but discrete alien Benedictine priories, but St Olave's
(originally a cell of Grestein) had gone by the 17thc. (although its site has
been excavated recently). All Saints' parish church was alongside St Mary's,
but was blown down by a storm in 1801 and its parishioners accommodated by the
addition of a N transept to St Mary's, using some of the old fabric. St Mary's
is a flint church of nave, chancel and W tower. The N
transept added in 1802 was enlarged to form a three-bay
N aisle in 1885. There is a N doorway without a porch
and a 12thc. S doorway under a 15thc. porch liberally
adorned with flushwork. The chancel is the same width
as the nave, with which it shares a roof, and has no chancel arch. It was 13thc. originally but was largely rebuilt
in 1885. To the N is an organ room and vestry. The W
tower is 14thc. in its lower stage, with a flowing W window and the arms of the
Uffords, Earls of Suffolk, above it. It originally had a spire but this had
collapsed by 1801 and was replaced with a pyramid roof. The present bell stage
and parapet, embattled and decorated with flushwork,
date from 1885.and brick diagonal buttresses have been added at the W. To the N
of the church stands a single-storey parish room dating from the early 19thc.
and once used as a school. The S nave doorway, heavily restored, is the only
Romanesque feature.
