Church Of The Holy Trinity

THE GREEN WEST 1. 5377 Church Walk Long Melford Church of the Holy Trinity TL 8646 20/449 23.3.61. I GV

1. A magnificent example of late perpendicular clerestoryed nave and chancel rebuilt on the site of an earlier church between circa 1460 and circa 1495. The 5 west bays have the C14 piers of the earlier church. The Lady Chapel, added to the east end, was built by the Cloptons of Kentwell Hall in 1496 and the west tower was built between 1898 and 1903 to the designs of the architect G F Bodley. The length of the church, including the Lady Chapel is some 250 ft. The church is of flint and stone with richly ornamented flushwork on the south side. The nave and chancel has a castellated parapet with flat roofed north and south aisles. A notable feature of the exterior is the extensive series of memorial inscriptions exhorting prayer for the souls of the many who contributed to the building of the church and their families, which extend in decorative bands round the church. From these inscriptions the building of the church can be closely dated. The clerestory 1481, the south chapel 1484 and the Lady Chapel 1496. The nave and chancel has fine moulded arch braced cambered beams with carved spandrels with moulded ridge beams, purlins and joists. The Lady Chapel, built separately from the church, is linked to the chancel by single storeyed vestries. It is designed as an interior shrine surrounded by an ambulatory, with fine moulded cambered beams and joists to the roofs. The Clopton chapel, to the north of the chancel has a number of good C15 and C16 brasses and the Clopton chantry which adjoins on the east has the monument to John Clopton (d 1497), a plain tomb chest of Purbeck marble. In the chancel, immediately south of the altar is the large and elaborate monument to Sir William Cordell, Master of the Rolls (d 1581), designed by Cornelius Cure, master mason to the crown. In the north wall of the nave there is a fine, small, bas relief in alabaster of the Adoration of the Magi (dated circa 1350) probably from the earlier church. Graded for its outstanding architecutral, historical and topographical value.

Listing NGR: TL8650946760