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© Mrs B.A. Curtis ARPS
IoE Number:
279201
Location:
CHURCH OF ST MARY, CHURCH LANE
BARHAM, MID SUFFOLK, SUFFOLK
Photographer:
Mrs B.A. Curtis ARPS
Date Photographed:
08 September 1999
Date listed:
09 December 1955
Date of last amendment:
09 December 1955
Grade
I
The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incorporate subsequent amendments to the list. For the statutory list and information on the current listed status of individual buildings please go to The National Heritage List for England.
BARHAM CHURCH LANE
TM 15 SW
3/8 Church of St. Mary
9.12.55
I
Parish church, mediaeval with mid C19 alterations. Nave, chancel, south-west
tower/porch, north chapel and vestry. A church room was added to north of
nave c.1980. Flint rubble with freestone dressings; much of the fabric has
random blocks of reused moulded stone. The nave clerestory and vestry have
red brickwork of c.1500. Plaintiled roofs with parapet gables. The tower has
a flat roof behind C19 battlemented parapets. The chancel has late C13 work:
south doorway, sedilia with tall shafts and pierced trefoils, a cusped
piscina, and opposite is a large niche, perhaps an aumbry. Nave rebuilt mia
C14; and with it the tower which includes a porch at ground storey. Both nave
doorways are hood-moulded inside and out, with grotesque corbels. A number of
Y-traceried windows. Later in C14 a 2-bay chapel was added to north of nave,
later to be extended. C.1500, the nave walls were raised in red brick for a
7-bay hammerbeam roof, with clerestory windows in each bay. The hammerbeams
and cornice are crenellated, but the upper part of the roof was renewed with
king-posts on collarbeams in C19, when the angels were also replaced. A 4-
light window of c.1525 in the vestry has a frame and mullions of terracotta
with early Renaissance moulding. It was commissioned by the Bacon family and
is by Italian craftsmen. Unlike similar finer examples at Shrubland Hall and
Henley Church, this window is ill-composed, perhaps from surplus components.
The east window (in C13 style) and west window (C14 style) were introduced mid
C19. In the Middleton Chapel is a fine section of C15 rood screen, no doubt
removed from the chancel-arch in C18 and augmented with contemporary
panelling. The C19 pulpit also has traceried and coloured panels from the
same source. Carved Italian altar rails, dated 1700; of same date are panels
painted with Commandments, Lord's Prayer and The Creed. A set of 5 plain C16
poppyhead benches in the nave. In the chancel is a fine C15 recessed and
canopied table monument with cusped and crocketed ogee-arched head. A wall
monument to Sir Richard Southwell, d.1640, with effigies of him and his wife.
In the chancel floor is a brass to Robert Southwell (d.1514). A floor slab
of 1629 in the chancel, and seven others of late C17 and early C18 in the
nave. Upon the nave walls are 5 painted panels bearing coats of arms.