Church Of St Mary And Attached Wall And Railings

CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS

Parish church on Crown Street, Bury St Edmunds. Built in the 14th and 15th centuries on an earlier site. Constructed in flint and stone with ashlar facing to the south and west elevations, and lead-covered roofs.

The church comprises a nave and chancel, north and south aisles, and a north-west tower. The plan reflects significant medieval building campaigns and later additions.

The south aisle, extending fourteen bays, features 3-light transomed and traceried windows with 2-centred arches, stepped buttresses between the windows, and a diagonal buttress at the south-west angle. The last four bays to the east form an extension created as a chantry chapel, given by Jankyn Smith between 1463 and 1473. Smith also funded a slightly earlier extension to the north aisle to form a chapel and the sanctuary. Both the nave and aisles have embattled parapets.

The west front is similar in character to the Cathedral of St James on Angel Hill, featuring crocketed finials, a stepped gable to the nave, and a 5-light transomed window. The two aisles have 4-light transomed windows. Empty canopied niches flank the west door. A stepped east gable to the nave is crowned with two rood-stair turrets with tall crocketed spires and finials. The battlemented 14th-century tower rises in three stages with stone string-courses between them. Stepped angle buttresses, stone-faced with flint panels, provide structural support. The tower is flint-faced, with 3-light traceried windows to each face of the top stage, 2-light windows to the middle stage, and on the west side two long narrow 2-light transomed windows to the first stage. The south side and parts of the east and west sides of the tower project into the north aisle, reducing the number of windows.

The Nottyngham porch, an ornate stone-faced structure with pinnacles, a crocketed gable, and three niches above the entrance, was built in the 1440s in memory of John Nottyngham and his wife. Within the porch is a re-used 14th-century north doorway. The porch features a stone vaulted ceiling panelled with a wheel of blank arches and an open pendant as the hub.

A short stretch of the precinct wall of the Abbey of St Edmund adjoins the north-west angle buttress of the tower. The stone quoins of the buttress stop near the top of this wall, which rises to approximately 4 metres in places and between 1 and 2 metres in others. A later doorway has been cut through the wall.

Interior: The nave arcades span ten bays with very tall shafted arches. Small capitals on thin triple shafts appear only at the arch openings. The impressive nave roof alternates hammer-beam trusses with moulded arched-brace trusses. Large recumbent angel figures adorn the hammer-beams, thought to represent the procession at the Coronation of the Virgin. Carved spandrels appear on the arched braces, and tracery ornaments the collar braces. Wall plates bear demi-angels, and wall posts rest on corbels with carved figures. Above the chancel arch, a 6-pointed star tracery window was inserted by Cottingham in the 1840s. The 14th-century wagon roof in the chancel features cusped panels with carved bosses and a painted cornice with angels carrying scrolls.

The former Lady Chapel in the south aisle was converted to a chantry chapel by John Baret (died 1467), who added a boarded and painted ceiling with panels each bearing his motto "Grace Me Governe". Against the south wall stands his table tomb with a cadaver monument lying upon it.

Attached to the north-west corner of the west front is a 60-metre stretch of 19th-century cast-iron railings approximately 1 metre high, dividing the churchyard from Crown Street. Set on a low stone plinth, the railings have square shafts set diagonally and topped by fleur-de-lys finials. Short bays are defined by main verticals with iron-twist shafts and 4-way fleur-de-lys finials, and include a small gate. A further 74-metre stretch of similar style and materials is attached to the south-west corner of the west front and runs down the south side of the church along Honey Hill, incorporating two pairs of double gates.