Church of St Michael is a Grade I listed building in the East Suffolk local planning authority area, England. First listed on 7 December 1966. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Michael
- WRENN ID
- spare-bonework-acorn
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- East Suffolk
- Constituency
- Suffolk Coastal MP: Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 7 December 1966
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Michael, Cookley Corner
- OS grid reference
- TM 349 753
- Coordinates
- 52.32591, 1.44656
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St. Michael is a parish church that dates back to the medieval period and was restored in 1894. It features a nave, chancel, west tower, south porch, and north vestry. The building is constructed from flint and stone rubble, with some coursed work, particularly on the tower, and has stone dressings and plain tiled roofs.
The square, unbuttressed 12th-century tower has a later crenellated parapet adorned with flushwork panels. It includes a two-light west window with Y-tracery, a lancet window on the south face, and two-light Y-tracery openings in the bell chamber. Internally, the east face of the tower has a blocked original window. The nave has a 12th-century core and features windows in the 15th-century style, most of which have been renewed. A notable feature is the good 12th-century north doorway, now located within the vestry, which has one order of shafts and a semi-circular arch with chevron moulding. The late 19th-century timber porch adds to the structure.
The chancel, likely from the 14th century, has two bays and includes a broad lancet window to the north, while the other windows and the Priest's doorway have been largely restored or renewed. The nave boasts a remarkable four-bay late 15th or early 16th-century hammerbeam roof, featuring a crenellated wallplate and wall posts that rest on carved timber corbels shaped like heads. The chancel has a three-bay arched-braced roof, probably dating to the same period as the nave roof.
Inside, there is a 15th-century font bowl with well-preserved carved panels. The nave contains four fine 15th-century poppyhead benches with carved ends and backs, along with mutilated armrests, and two simpler poppyhead benches in the chancel. The chancel stalls feature traceried panels, likely from the rood screen. Additionally, there is a simple trefoil-headed piscina and drop-seat sedilia in the south sanctuary. An effigy brass of William Browne (1587), along with his wife and their eight children, has been remounted on the west wall of the nave. The church is graded I for its surviving medieval work.
Local climate
Church of St Michael sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 700 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 92% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 63% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 21 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 78% of listed buildings. Of these, 11 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.
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