Church of St Peter is a Grade II* listed building in the East Suffolk local planning authority area, England. A Medieval Church.

Church of St Peter

WRENN ID
muffled-courtyard-sage
Grade
II*
Local Planning Authority
East Suffolk
Constituency
Waveney Valley MP: Adrian Ramsay (Green)
Country
England
Type
Church
Period
Medieval
Address
Church of St Peter, South Elmham
OS grid reference
TM 335 848
Coordinates
52.41139, 1.43326
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Peter is a parish church located in South Elmham, dating from the 12th and 14th centuries. It features a nave, chancel, south porch, and a west tower. The nave and chancel are constructed from rubble flint with stone dressings, and the roofs are slate. The nave has 14th and 15th-century windows, while the south side of the chancel displays Y-tracery windows, with none on the north side. The east window is a three-light design with intersecting tracery. There is a blocked north doorway leading to the nave.

The small tower, built in four stages, is made of rubble flint mixed with stone and red brick. It has diagonal buttresses at the west end, featuring diagonal chequerwork in stone and flint at the bases and chequerwork paneling on the faces. The tower has a battlemented and panelled parapet, with four wide single-light windows at the top stage. The tower is simple, with diagonal buttresses and remnants of flushwork panels on the front, along with a single-light trefoil-headed window on each side and the remains of a holy water stoup.

The south doorway is a plain Norman style with one order of shafts, cushion capitals, and undecorated abaci. Inside, the church has a simple layout with 19th-century benches, a pulpit, and a lectern, as well as a boarded replacement roof in the chancel. The nave roof consists of four bays with arched braces and collars reaching the apex in a triangular form, featuring carved motifs at the intersections of the purlins and principals. The western tower arch is high, while the fine 14th-century chancel arch has a continuous outer moulding along the jambs and over the arch, decorated with fleurons and heads. The 15th-century font has a low octagonal base with four seated lions around the shaft, and the bowl is adorned with alternating blank shields and Tudor roses. There is a piscina located beside the altar.

Local climate

Church of St Peter sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 88% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 69% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 23 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 76% of listed buildings. Of these, 12 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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