Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church dating primarily to the late 14th century, with significant additions and alterations in the late 15th and mid-19th centuries, situated on the west side of Ixworth High Street. The building is principally constructed of random flint with freestone dressings. A late 14th century south porch is built of knapped flint, displaying an embattled parapet and flushwork panelling on its south face. The nave, with its north and south aisles, was built in the late 15th century, topped by a clerestory. The nave roof is a five-bay structure with a low pitch and cambered, moulded tie-beams adorned with winged angels at the base of the braces and along the cornice. Similar mouldings are present on both aisle roofs. The nave and aisle roofs are covered with lead, for which funds were bequeathed by Robert Garrard in 1533; the floors are paved with small 18th-century tiles in cream and red. The church contains mid-19th century furnishings including a pulpit and bench ends carved with traditional poppy-heads. A 15th-century octagonal font, originally likely set on a high base, is also present, alongside an iron-bound alms box located near the south door. The chancel, dating to the 14th century, was extensively restored in the 1850s and is topped with a steeply pitched plaintiled roof. A priest's door on the south side features a holy water stoup set into the adjacent wall. An external niche with a cusped head, likely originally containing a stone rood, is positioned at the east end. In the south east angle stands an external turret providing stair access to the rood loft. The roof’s structure incorporates alternate arched brace and hammerbeam trusses, with delicate tracery filling the spandrels. A 13th-century double piscina is also present. On the north side is a tomb chest with decorated pilasters and three shields memorializing Richard Coddington (died 1567) and his wife, which exhibits Italian leaf-carving on the rounded arch of its back, and three vertically placed brasses. A memorial east window, dating from the 1860s and in a Decorated style, is located here. The late 15th century west tower features four diagonal buttresses and a battlemented parapet. The tower’s plinth, parapet, and faces of the buttresses are decorated with panels and emblems in knapped flint. The third panel up on the south-east buttress depicts the crown and arrows saltire associated with St. Edmund, along with the inscription 'Mast Robt Schot Abot', referencing Robert Schot, an Ixworth resident who served as Abbot of Bury St Edmunds from 1469 to 1474. Three inscribed tiles – two from the south wall and one near the west doorway – are now displayed within the base of the tower. Two of these tiles are dated 1472, while the third reads 'Thome Vyal gaf to the stepil iiij li', indicating that Thomas Vyal bequeathed £4 towards the tower's construction, as evidenced by his will dated 1472. These inscriptions date construction work on the tower to the 1470s.