St Peter & St Paul, Bardwell
St Peter & St Paul, Bardwell
St Peter and St Paul is a Grade I parish church on Church Road, Bardwell, Suffolk, in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and the Blackbourne Team. Historic England records a fifteenth-century west tower and an early fifteenth-century south porch, with a fine hammer-beam nave roof.
- Location
- Bardwell, Suffolk
- Country
- England
- County
- Suffolk
- City / town
- Bardwell
- Address
- Church Road, Bardwell, Suffolk, IP31 1AH
- Postcode
- IP31 1AH
- Built
- Late C14 to C15; chancel largely rebuilt 1853
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Peter and Paul
- Diocese
- St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
- Parish
- Bardwell
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Perpendicular
- Materials
- Flint rubble with knapped flint and stone chequerwork; ashlar dressings; slate roofs
- Grid reference
- TL 941 736
- Opening hours
- Open daily from 9am until about 5pm (or dusk if earlier).
- Access
- Ramp or level access available on request
Overview
The listing describes a west tower of rubble flint on a chequerwork base of stone and knapped flint, with four ashlar-faced buttresses, an external south stair turret and a small lead-covered spire over six bells. The early fifteenth-century south porch, also knapped flint on a chequerwork base, has flushwork battlements and three canopied niches (statues mid-nineteenth-century); the doorway spandrels carry the arms of Sir William Berdewell (d. 1434) and his wife. The nave is random flint, with a range of fourteenth-century two-light windows with reticulated tracery. A single hammer-beam roof has arched braces and extensive painted decoration: trailing floral designs, diagonal stripes and simulated tracery; angel figures survive on some hammer beams. The porch roof, restored as a memorial in 1852, has miniature hammer-beams with shields.
The parish site places the church in the late 1300s and notes that the chancel was almost completely rebuilt and its floor lowered in 1853. Medieval stained glass was conserved in a 2019–20 repair project. The church remains open daily as the village parish church.