Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church largely dating to the 14th and 15th centuries. It underwent restoration in 1867, primarily to the chancel, by H.J. Green of Norwich. The church consists of a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a west tower, and north and south porches. The exterior is constructed of flint and septaria rubble with reused limestone blocks, with the north aisle and porch plastered. The nave and aisle roofs are low-pitched and leaded, while the chancel and porch roofs are plaintiled.

The chancel contains high-quality work from around 1360, although it has been extensively restored internally. It features a large four-light east window with intersecting tracery, and north and south windows with dagger tracery and carved hoodmould stops. Image niches flank the east window, and a fine composition of a piscina and sedilia is located on the south wall. A circular window above the south wall exhibits unusual tracery, and the chancel roof is a 19th-century design with a deep enriched cornice. The nave arcade, dating to the mid-14th century, has six bays of octagonal columns with moulded capitals. The late 14th-century tower is massive and plain, incorporating triple-chamfered formerly-open arches to the north and south to allow processions to pass through, abutting the churchyard boundary. A stoup is situated at the west doorway, and the belfry windows date to the 15th century. A disguised timber-framed north porch, likely of the mid-14th century, has a heavy moulded arched outer doorway, knee-braced studded side walls, and a coupled rafter roof; the outer door is a C17 plank door with medieval ironwork. The inner north doorway is also from around 1350, featuring attached shafts with foliate capitals and grotesque hood-mould stops. The north aisle contains good 15th-century windows, and its lean-to roof has moulded principals and a brattished cornice. The south aisle retains some 14th-century features, including a plain piscina and west window, with later 15th-century tracery in the south windows; a will of 1472 may refer to these. The clerestory windows are similar in style. The arch-braced nave roof was rebuilt in the 18th century, incorporating tiebeams and kingposts, while reusing 15th-century components such as moulded principals. The south porch is constructed of narrow mid-16th century buff bricks, with hoodmoulded side windows and polygonal corner buttresses; the outer doorway was reconstructed in the early 18th century with an arch of finely-gauged red brick.

A late 14th-century octagonal limestone font features shields with shallow tracery on each splayed face, and a buttressed stem with window tracery. The base of the roodscreen survives with restored paintwork and stencilling; a will of 1472 mentions its construction including the rood stairs. Sections of a lower screen remain in both the north and south aisles. There are two sets of 15th-century benches in the nave with good poppyhead ends, with carved human and animal figures on the buttresses; the front rows have been restored. An early 17th-century hexagonal pulpit has arcaded panelled sides and a book board supported by scrolled brackets, resting on a 19th-century limestone plinth. A wall monument commemorating Thomas Sotherbie, d.1647, is located in the chancel. There is good 15th-century stained glass in several windows, described in detail by H. Munro Cautley in "Suffolk Churches."