St Mary, Earl Stonham

St Mary's is a Grade I parish church at Forward Green, Earl Stonham, Suffolk, in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich: a medieval cruciform church famous for its ten-bay hammer-beam nave roof.

Overview

Historic England lists the Church of St Mary the Virgin (list entry 1033223, designated 9 December 1955). The listing records a medieval parish church with major phases of the mid fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and a restoration of 1874. The plan is nave, chancel, north and south transepts, south porch and west tower. Fabric is flint rubble, mainly plastered, with freestone dressings; the nave roof is slated, the chancel concrete plaintiled, other roofs mainly leaded, with parapet gables throughout. Some thirteenth-century fabric survives in the chancel, including a north lancet. A major rebuilding of the nave and the addition of transepts and porch took place in the mid fourteenth century.

The fine west tower of about 1500 has flushwork tracery to the buttresses, plinth and parapets, and a good west doorway with traceried doors; the fourteenth-century west window is reused above it. In the early sixteenth century a clerestory was added to the nave. The listing highlights a very fine ten-bay hammer-beam nave roof. A Domesday entry records a church at Stonham, and a Suffolk Historic Churches Trust guide notes a restoration of 1874. The church is in the North Bosmere Benefice.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1033223
• Parish: St Mary's Church
• Wikipedia: Church of St Mary the Virgin, Earl Stonham