Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary at Thornham Parva

This is a parish church of 12th-century origin with significant later medieval additions. The chancel was rebuilt, the nave was raised, and a tower was added in the 14th century. The building was restored in 1883. It is constructed of flint rubble with ashlar dressings and some brick repairs, with thatched roofs.

The church is a small building with a continuous nave and chancel and a west tower. The tower is a short, two-stage unbuttressed square tower with an offset plinth and quoining. Its west face has a two-light window in the lower stage with cusped Y traceried segmental pointed arch; the upper stage is separated from the lower by a string course and contains small 19th-century openings with ogee heads. The tower has a pyramidal roof with finial and iron weathervane. On the south side of the lower stage is a small stair projection and a two-stage buttress.

The nave is of coursed rubble. On its south side is a 12th-century entrance towards the west with a round arch, outer shafted jambs with scalloped capitals and moulded impost blocks, and a roll-moulded archivolt. Also on the south are a 12th-century round-headed slit window, a two-light 14th-century window with cusped ogee-headed lights and traceried square head with hood mould, and a 19th-century two-light window towards the east with traceried pointed arch. A two-stage buttress stands to the south of the chancel. The chancel has a two-light 14th-century window matching that on the nave, and towards the east a 19th-century Y-traceried pointed-arched window with hood moulds. The east end has a large three-light 14th-century window with pointed arch, reticulated quatrefoil tracery and hood mould, with a trefoil above and moulded kneelers; it sits below a coped gable parapet with ridge cross and two-stage diagonal buttresses.

On the north side, the chancel has a 19th-century window and a 19th-century pointed-arched entrance with a two-stage buttress. The nave also has a 14th-century two-light window with king and queen mask stops to the hood mould, and towards the west end a simple 12th-century chamfered round-arched entrance. Where the nave meets the tower on the north is a low buttress with quoined end, reflecting the height of the original 12th-century nave.

Interior

The interior features a blocked 14th-century tower arch with pointed form and hollow chamfers stopped on mask corbels. Above this on the nave's west wall is a small round light with deeply splayed embrasure. The 12th-century light in the nave's south wall also has a deeply splayed embrasure in a continuous roll mould broached at base; the window to the north has similarly roll-moulded jambs. The nave roof is ceiled with tall ashlar pieces exposed. Tie beam ends to the south at the east end and rood loft and candle beam ends in the north wall above a slight recess for stairs.

The chancel's south side has a quatrefoil piscina with hollow moulded square head, opposite a sedilia below the window. The roof is ceiled with 19th-century cornices.

Important wall paintings survive in the nave on the north, south and west walls, dating from the mid 13th century and depicting scenes from the life of St Edmund with vine scrolled borders. These include a cart with coffin and monks to the north and Christ Enthroned with the Virgin, also to the north.

At the nave's west end is an early 19th-century bow-fronted gallery with two iron columnar supports and panelled frontal with heavy cornice. Dogleg stairs in the tower have slat balusters, a moulded ramped handrail and newel post. Panelled box pews are present, and above the gallery on the west wall are panels of the Lord's Prayer and Credo.

An early 14th-century octagonal font stands to the west, with a large base and stem moulded up to the bowl, which has traceried faces. A restored 15th-century screen to the chancel has two bays of two-lights each to each side, with cusped and crocketed ogee tracery and brattished head. A 14th-century segmental-headed iron-bound chest is in the chancel.

A 17th-century pulpit from Stradbroke has been re-erected as a reredos, with its tester remaining in the tower. A 17th-century chair in the chancel has an arched panelled back.

The most significant item is the Thornham Parva Retable, dating to around 1300 and probably painted for the Dominican monastery at Thetford. This is a triptych with three scenes to each panel. The central panel shows the Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist flanked by Saints Peter and Paul. The left panel depicts Saints John the Baptist, Catherine and Dominic, and the right panel shows Saints Edmund, Margaret and Peter Martyr. Each figure stands beneath a cusped pointed arch, with spandrels featuring carved roses and leaf ornament and intricate gessowork backgrounds.

In the chancel is a case containing a printed Bible of around 1640. A floor slab commemorates P. Bokenham, who died in 1681, and his family, with arms above.

Fragments of early glass survive in the east window and in the nave to the south, with 19th and 20th-century glass elsewhere in the nave.