St Mary

The late C13 or C14, 3-stage W tower has diagonal buttresses and a plain parapet.

There is a 2 light Decorated W window, simpler 2-light C14 windows in the bell stage and small openings in the middle stage.

There are no W windows in the aisles, nor an E window in the N aisle, but the S aisle has a 3-light C15 E window.

The post-medieval S porch is of brick, rendered on the inside, and has unglazed N and S openings.

It may be C12 in origin with mouldings of the C15 or later.

The chancel S wall has two 2-light Decorated windows similar to those in the aisles, and there is also a single C13 lancet in the chancel S wall.

There are three C13 lancets in its N wall.

INTERIOR C13 chancel arch, the responds with engaged shafts and bell capitals.

The chancel has a C13 piscina with a pointed trefoil head on shafts.

No tower arch, but a richly moulded late C13 or early C14 doorway with a medieval door into the tower.

Some timber may be late medieval, but it was much renewed in the C19.

The E ends of both aisles are enclosed with screens, those on the N late C15, those on the S early C20.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES Chancel piscina is mid C13 and has a trefoiled arch on shafts with oversized moulded capitals.

The chancel altar is early C20 and has riddel posts with angels

Octagonal medieval font with a probably C17 cover.

TL7258 : St Mary, Lidgate - Font

© John Salmon

Parclose screen in N aisle late C15 or early C16 with pretty tracery and depressed ogee headed arches.

Early C20 screen at E end of S aisle, also with 4-centred ogee headed arches and a Tudor arched door.

Good set of probably C16 nave benches.

In the N aisle another set of C16 benches with square ends and linenfold panelling.

C17 pulpit with a tall, polygonal panelled drum on a larger square, panelled, timber base with finials on the corner posts.

TL7258 : St Mary, Lidgate - Pulpit

© John Salmon

Probably C17 nave chandeliers.

Some late C19 and early C20 glass including the S chancel lancet by Clayton and Bells of the 1870s.

A late C14 brass to Thomas atte Welle, rector, sometimes incorrectly said to be the poet monk John Lidgate Ledger slab to John Isaacson, an early C19 rector, signed by Parkinson of Newmarket.

There is much medieval and later graffiti, including 3 late C14 fragments of music, a head of the Virgin Mary on a S arcade pier, and a windmill.

HISTORY The earliest visible fabric is the long, C13 chancel

the church was probably built in the C12 and the nave has Norman proportions.

The tower was added in the late C13 or early C14 (the work may have been carried out in several phases) and the aisles were added in the C14.

There was further work in the late C15, when the nave roof was redone, the chancel and N aisle screens put in and some of the windows modified.

The castle seems to have largely gone out of use in the later C13.

The church was probably intended partly as a castle chapel, and the extensive rebuilding of the church in the late C13

C14 may represent the ending of the castle¿s dominance SOURCES Cautley, H M, Suffolk Churches , 325 Mortlock, D P, The Popular Guide to Suffolk Churches, I: West Suffolk Pevsner, N, rev. E Radcliffe, The Buildings of England: Suffolk , 333 Jo Cox notes

photos. http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/lidgate.html http://www.lidgate.suffolk.gov.uk/castle1.html for the castle REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The church of St Mary, Lidgate, Suffolk, is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * A fine medieval church with excellent survival of medieval fabric, not over restored. * Excellent surviving medieval fittings, including C15 parclose

chancel screens, and C16 benches.