Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

This is a parish church of medieval origin, located at Bramford Church Green. The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, north and south porches, and a west tower. A vestry was added in 1896. The walls are constructed of flint rubble with freestone dressings, and most roofs are leaded with freestone parapets and parapet gables.

The church's architectural history spans several centuries. Some 13th-century features survive in the south chancel wall, including a plain priest's doorway and a 2-light window. Below the window are a simple arched piscina and triple sedilia with individual arched heads supported on slender octagonal columns. The present plan form was established by the mid-14th century. The nave has four bays of octagonal piers with moulded capitals, dating from the mid-14th century. Additional 14th-century work remains in both aisles and porches, including a moulded south doorway, a plain restored south porch with chamfered doorway and windows, and a window in the north aisle with intersecting tracery. The north porch also retains a window with 14th-century tracery. An inner north doorway dates from the late 14th century and retains its original or early door.

The early 14th-century chancel screen is of limestone and is exceptional in Suffolk. It features three arches, each with attached shafts; the cornice and quatrefoils are 19th-century additions. The tower was added around 1370 and underwent extensive remodelling in the late 15th century. The large western tower has angle buttresses and unusual angel grotesques at the offsets, now badly weathered. The base is decorated with flushwork panels. The belfry windows and large west window display curvilinear tracery, and a tall tower-arch rises within. Three finely-carved corbels at the corners are positioned to support a vault, though it may never have been constructed. The lead-clad spire was rebuilt from the original base framing in the 18th century.

The north porch and aisle display fine late 15th-century workmanship and formed the main approach from the village. Details include traceried flushwork, image niches in the buttresses, and a blank panelled frieze along the parapets. The north doorway has a square label resting on lion corbels, with a niche for the Virgin and Child above. The parapets are adorned with sculptured grotesque figures, including a chained monkey. The south aisle is similar in date and form but lacks parapets and embellishment.

The nave walls were raised for the clerestory during this period, and a fine hammerbeam roof was constructed, comprising seven bays of trusses. Each truss features a defaced angel hammerbeam, arch-braced high collars, and kingposts, separated by moulded cornices. A similar chancel roof of four bays exists. The aisle roofs display richly carved bosses, and defaced standing figures support the arch-braced principals in the south aisle.

Interior furnishings include a restored 16th-century linenfold panelled pulpit. A 15th-century limestone octagonal font in the tower bears emblems of the evangelists on its bowl and a traceried stem. Its large and opulent early 16th-century oak cover features a canopied image stool on each face, carved corner buttresses, and a crocketed dome with spike finial.

Monuments include a wall tablet to Elizabeth Dade (died 1648) in the south aisle with gilded enrichment, and an early 18th-century tablet in the north aisle. The nave contains four 17th-century marble ledger slabs and one of 1719, with another 17th-century slab in the tower. A poor box on the south arcade, probably a 19th-century copy of the original, is surmounted by a fine original inscription reading: "Remember ye pore the Scripture doth record what to them is geven is lent unto the Lord 1591".