Description

TL 97 SW TROSTON CHURCH LANE

3/51 Church of St. Mary
14.7.55

- I

Parish church. C13 and later. Flint, with ashlar dressings: roofs of clay
plaintiles with alternating bands of plain and fishscale tiles. Nave and
chancel, west tower and south porch. Early C14 tower, mainly in kidney flint,
part coursed, with angle buttresses faced with ashlar. 4 stages. 3 string
courses. A Y-window on each face of the top stage, one Y-window in 2nd stage
on west, and a small square window in 3rd stage on south. Plain crenellated
stone top. Fine south porch in black knapped random flint with a base of stone
panels from which all the flint flushwork is missing. Diagonal buttresses. The
front has delicate panels of flushwork, 3 empty canopied niches above the
doorway and a crenellated parapet with flushwork panels alternating with
crowned monograms. Entrance with fleurons to arch. Open timber roof with butt
purlins and arch-braced collars. Continuous arch to south doorway of c.1300,
without capitals. Nave, mainly in kidney flint, partly covered in old render on
south side, re-rendered C20 on north. 4 bays: 2-light windows with cusped
heads and pointed hood-moulds. Chancel rendered, with 3 lancet windows on the
south wall and 2 on the north, all with very wide inner splays. The south-
western lancet has a low side window below it, blocked, but with the wooden
hinged shutter in situ inside. Simple priest's door with cavetto-mould to
surround. 3 lancets to east window. The interior of the nave is filled with
crudely-carved mid C19 benches, in a curious Jacobean Gothic style: a few C15
benches, with damaged poppyheads and figures, at the back. Also at the rear
are the 5 bells, dismounted and standing on the floor, and the font: a plain
octagonal bowl and moulded shaft on a high round base, with a damaged Jacobean
cover. On the north wall are the remains of 4 medieval paintings: St
Christopher, St. George and the Dragon twice, and the martyrdom of St. Edmund.
Over the chancel arch, the remains of a Doom. On the south wall, the arms of
James I, repainted for George I. In the south-east corner, the remains of a
piscina with cusped ogee head. All the heads of the nave windows are filled
with fragments of medieval glass. C15 carved screen, with one-light divisions,
crudely guilded and repainted, with a C19 cross above. Fine Jacobean pulpit
with a reader's desk in front of it made up of a mixture of heavily-carved C17
panels, probably reused from an overmantel. Plain, 6-bay rafter roof with
collars and scissor-bracing: no tie-beams. Floor to nave paved with old 4-inch
tiles in black and red, set diagonally. The chancel has Jacobean panelling
along the side walls, and reused panelling behind the alter is said to be the
front of the rood loft (cf. Munro Cautley, Suffolk Churches and their
Treasures, p.328). A double piscina with restored traceried head. Several C15
benches, with poppy-heads and animals, one apparently a mermaid (cf.Ixworth
Thorpe). C15 roof: 3 bays, moulded butt purlins and solid arched braces to
high collars. Moulded cornice. 3 memorial tablets on the north wall, the
central to Lieut. Henry Capel-Lofft, killed near Badajoz in the Peninsular War.
Memorial stained glass of c.1960 in the east window.

Listing NGR: TL9003172270

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526504

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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