Church Of St Mary The Virgin

TM 15 NW 5/101

EARL STONHAM FORWARD GREEN Church of St. Mary the Virgin

9-12-55

GV I Parish church, medieval with major phases of mid C14 and early C16. Restoration of 1874. Nave, chancel, north and south transepts, south porch and west tower. Flint rubble, mainly plastered, with freestone dressings. Nave roof slated, chancel roof concrete plaintiled, other roofs mainly leaded; parapet gables throughout. Some C13 fabric in chancel including a lancet in north wall. Double-bowl piscina is possibly C14 but reusing late C13 bowls; a pair of sedilia have a crouching hound between them, and another chancel window is also of c.1300. Major rebuilding of nave and addition of transepts and porch in mid C14. The porch has an image niche, and moulded cornice and bargeboards. A number of 2-light C14 windows, some with individual tracery; a priest's doorway north and south nave doorways, and large east and west windows. Fine tower of c.1500: flushwork tracery to the buttresses, plinth and parapets; good west doorway with traceried doors; the C14 west window is reused above it. In early C16 a clerestory was formed above the nave, with more flushwork tracery between the windows and at the parapets. Very fine 10- bay hammer-beam nave roof, richly carved and moulded throughout, alternate trusses have true or false beams, the former carved as angels, the latter having pendentive posts with carved bosses. Figures in canopied niches are at each wallpost. Chancel roof plainer and much restored in C19. C15 octagonal limestone font; alternate faces of bowl have figures and emblems. Octagonal pulpit, temp. James II, with strapwork-enriched arcading. The C19 choirstalls incorporate C15 tracery from rood-screen, as well as 4 fine bench ends with carved figures. 6 poppyhead pews, also C15, are included in C19 nave seating. A fine painted doom over the chancel arch; another painting in south transept (damaged). Others found in north transept in C19 were destroyed during rebuilding but recorded on paintings in the church. Some fragments of C14 glass. For details of nave roof and its imagery, The Fool in Medieval Church and Plays: Suffolk Review, April 1985: Timothy Easton. Suffolk Churches: H. Munroe Cautley, 1937.

Listing NGR: TM1077958839