Church Heritage Record 633287

Aisleless nave with south porch; west tower; chancel with north chantry chapel.

The body of the church is probably fifteenth-century; the north chapel is probably early sixteenth-century, the tower mid-sixteenth century, and the whole church was gradually restored by A. Grimwood of Sudbury in 1860, 1868 and 1875. The builders were Keogh of North Street, Sudbury. The south porch was added in c.1930. The north chapel was restored in 1961.

The west tower is a fine example of sixteenth-century brickwork typical of this area. It is of three stages, the lowest being much the tallest, and has big paired buttresses at the angles except that there are none on the east face, their place being taken by shallow pilaster strips which have a similar, though reduced, pattern of set-offs. The lowest stage is blind to north and south but has a three-light west window with stone panel tracery in Perpendicular style. The middle stage has small four-centred arched openings to north and south, each with a double-chamfered surround, and the top stage has two-light belfry openings in each face with stone tracery in a standard late Decorated pattern of cinquefoiled ogee arches with a pointed quatrefoil for tracery. These, and the flint-faced parapet, may be part of the nineteenth-century restoration. The parapet has plain merlons and a stone pinnacle at each corner. Access to the upper floors is by a spiral stair within a turret at the south-east angle. This is octagonal on plan and is lit by small unglazed openings. It reduces in dimensions at the level of the floor of the first stage and the abrupt roof slope may also be the result of nineteenth-century restoration.

The nave has unusual proportions, being short, broad and tall. In the north wall, moreover, there is an unusual configuration of openings, all near the western end. First, close against the western angle (which merges with the north-east buttress of the tower) there is a tall two-light window with a transom and shallow cusped arches to the leads of all four lights. This is protected by a moulded label. Its shape almost suggests that it was provided to light a staircase to a west gallery. Then, close to this, is a doorway with a moulded two-centred arch and voussoirs of flints alternating with bricks. It is blocked and appears to have been long disused. Above the doorway is a Tudor window of brick with two lights under a moulded brick hood. The wall terminates with an embattled parapet, at the midpoint of which there is a carved grotesque to eject rainwater into a downpipe. Most of the eastern bay of the north wall is covered by the later chantry chapel.

The south wall of the nave was much altered in the nineteenth century restoration when the position of the windows was changed. At the western end there is the porch in the lower part, a late addition built of the same materials - brick and flint as the rest of the fabric. The doorway which it shelters has a moulded four-centred arch with shields in quatrefoils in the spandrels. Further east there are two large three-light windows with mullions and transoms, the upper part with panel tracery, and voussoirs of brick and flint. At the south-east angle is the only buttress of the nave and at the mid-point of the parapet again there is a carved stone head for the rainwater.

The chancel has one window in the south wall similar to those in the nave south wall, but smaller and without the transom, and the east window has three lights again in the same style. The eastern angles have diagonal buttresses. The parapet is like that of the nave and is probably all nineteenth-century in date. The flint wall-surface (all unknapped) is probably also nineteenth-century.

On the north side of the chancel is the Crane chantry chapel, added in the early sixteenth-century. It is of brick with some stone dressings, and is divided into two bays, the western of which overlaps the north wall of the nave. The north wall is blind, broken only by a buttress at the midpoint which, like the buttresses at the angles, has a moulded stone plinth decorated with a recessed quatrefoil and two set-offs. Beside it, to the west, is a small doorway. The parapet has a continuous stone moulded edge without battlements. The east wall is pierced by a three-light window similar to the east chancel window and the west wall, which once had a similar window is now blind (the monument to Sir Robert Crane of 1626 occupies this position inside).

The interior of the nave and chancel owes its present appearance almost entirely to the work of 1861, in which year the Suffolk and Essex Free Press reported on 14th November that the high pitched roof was replaced by the present one of lower pitch, the box pews were removed, the south nave wall was rebuilt with the windows being moved "to give a stronger pier of masonry", all this work being done in strict adherence to the Perpendicular style. The floor was laid with Minton tiles, the old oak pulpit was restored and the nave was provided with "comfortable fixed apen benches similar to those at Twinstead". The nave has quarry tiles (by Minton) in the alleys and wooden boards under the pews. The walls are plastered and whitewashed and the south windows have mouldings round the arches. The roof has four tie beams with four-centred arched braces (these giving the "Perpendicular" character to which the Free Press alluded) and unmoulded purlins. The tower arch is tall and narrow, with a moulded arch carried on semi-octagonal responds with moulded capitals and ogee moulded bases. A small doorway under a moulded four-centred arch near the east end of the north wall communicates with the Crane Chapel.

The chancel arch is broad, with mouldings on the arch which die into the plain responds. Beyond it the building retains more original features than the nave does, although the tiled floor and most of the chancel furnishings (including an octofoil piscina under a cinquefoil arch in the south wall) are Victorian. The chancel roof is of two bays, a good piece of craftsmanship which may be early sixteenth-century or a good nineteenth-century copy, with moulded beams, purlins and rafters and arch braces, also moulded, resting on moulded stone corbels. The floor is paved with red, black and buff Minton tiles and with black and white marble in the sanctuary. On the north side of the chancel two arches under a broad relieving arch open into the Crane chapel. The arches have mouldings which reach to the floor in the diagonals but have capitals in the principal directions. The western arch also has a capital halfway up which may have been associated with a screen or perhaps a canopy of a tomb (though in the present arrangements the two tomb-chests with recumbent effigies are side by side under the eastern arch). There are plain corbels for statues on each side of the east window. One stone in the floor seems to be carved with a quatrefoil.