Description

TL 97 NE CONEY WESTON HOPTON ROAD

1/21 Church of St. Mary
14.7.55

- I

Parish church. C14 throughout, but not all of one date. Nave, chancel and
south porch (the tower fell in 1690). Rubble flint with freestone dressings;
thatched roof to nave with decorated ridge, plaintiles to chancel and porch.
The nave and porch have a moulded stone base with a course of stone blocks
alternating with squares of black knapped flint. Buttresses faced with
freestone and black knapped flint. At the west end of the nave the former
tower arch has been infilled with courses of limestone blocks interspersed
with flint rubble; a blocked square 2-light window with stone mullion on the
upper face of the gable. Two 2-light windows to the south side of nave, with
trefoil heads and quatrefoils in the tracery; to the west of the porch, a 2-
light square-headed window with hood-mould, and 2 similar windows on the north
side. 3 early C14 2-light windows to south side of chancel, with a recessed
arched niche in the wall below. On the north side of the chancel the blocked
remains of arches indicate a former chantry or chapel. 4-light east window
with reticulated tracery and a depressed arch; a small circular opening high
in the gable. Porch with embattled parapet faced with alternating square
panels of black knapped flint and freestone. Doorway with a sharply-arched
head which fits badly on the capitals. South doorway to nave with continuous
mouldings and a cinquefoil-headed blocked niche beside it. There is a bell-
cote for a single bell above the roof of the porch. Inside the building, most
fittings date from an extensive restoration of 1869. The fine Decorated
octagonal font has various traceried motifs reminiscent of the font at
Honington. In the north-west corner of the nave a section of small inlaid
medieval floor tiles: illustrated in the Suffolk Historic Churches Trust
booklet 'Medieval Floor Tiles in Suffolk Churches', by David Sherlock.
Plastered barrel-vaulted roof, said to have its original timbers. Chancel
arch flanked by 2 cusped niches, originally for side altars; a piscina with
cusped head in the south-east corner, and a shallow blank niche in the jamb of
the south-east window. In the north-east corner, a marble tablet in Classical
style to Maurice Dreyer and his wife, 1786. In the chancel, an open-sided
angle piscina and sedilia. Across the south-east corner, fragments of a
canopy and base for a statue. The windows contain a quanity of old crown
glass, diamond-leaded.

Listing NGR: TL9715978395

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526499

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)