Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul, Aldeburgh

This church comprises a 14th-century west tower with nave, north aisle and north chapel built in 1525–29; south aisle and south chapel added in 1534–35; south porch in 1539; and chancel in 1545. The building was restored in 1870–71 by Henry Perkin and again in 1891 by EF Bishop. Construction is of flint and pebble with ashlar dressings and some brick, with lead roofs throughout.

The exterior features a three-stage tower supported by diagonal buttresses rising from a flushwork-panelled base course. The west doorway has moulded jambs beneath a square hoodmould carved with shields and quatrefoils in the spandrels. A three-light Perpendicular west window sits above, with cinquefoiled ringing chamber openings and two-light renewed Perpendicular bell openings. The tower is topped with a crenellated parapet and has a polygonal stair turret to the south.

The south porch is constructed of brick and flint with three moulded arched openings straddling the pathway; the eastern and western openings were rebuilt in 1952. Two-light Perpendicular windows punctuate the east and west sides of the porch. The aisles feature three-light Perpendicular windows, with four-light versions at their east and west ends. The south aisle's penultimate bay retains a blocked four-centred doorway. Both aisles have diagonal buttresses at their east and west ends, stepped buttresses to the flanks, and crenellated parapets. The east ends of the aisles are flush with the chancel's east wall, which displays four-light 19th-century Perpendicular windows in the former and a five-light 19th-century Perpendicular window in the latter. An early 20th-century north vestry of one storey stands under a crenellated parapet, with a moulded north aisle doorway providing access.

The interior is dominated by a tall tower arch with polygonal responds and a chamfered and hollow-chamfered arch. A west gallery, created in 1840 by Robert Appleton, incorporates six bays of screen dado featuring cusped and traceried panels with texts. The nave contains five-bay arcades with quatrefoil piers bearing keel mouldings in the diagonals, supported on high polygonal bases with polygonal capitals and moulded arches. The ten-bay nave roof was built as a replica in 1934, employing arched braces to collars and two tiers of butt purlins on basket-arched braces. The aisle roofs are pitched with roll-moulded principal beams, predominantly 16th-century to the north and chiefly 19th-century to the south.

Among the furnishings is an elaborate octagonal pulpit of 1632 by John Garrard, featuring a tapering pedestal base; the main body displays arcaded panels with strapwork separated by strapwork muntins at the corners over rich strapwork aprons. Each overpanel carries carved fish and vine trails in high relief, with a plain cornice resting on fretwork consoles. The pulpit has curving stairs with irontwist balusters and a ramped handrail. A 15th-century octagonal font has a plain stem and a bowl with alternating panels depicting lions and angels bearing shields. A 17th-century Readers' Desk comprises four by two arcaded panels decorated with dog tooth, a strapwork frieze and cornice.

Monuments include a marble plinth with bust dedicated to George Crabbe, the poet, who died in 1832, sculpted by Thomas Thurlow and made in 1847. In the south chapel stands a monument to Lady Henrietta Vernon, who died in 1786, consisting of a sarcophagus behind drapery folds with a dark marble obelisk above against which a female figure leans upon an urn beneath a flying angel. Both the chancel and south chapel retain late 15th-century poppyheads to the benches. Two brasses are positioned at the east end of the nave, one dating to 1519 and the other a palimpsest.