St Mary's Church, Chilton

St Mary's Church, Chilton
St Mary's Church seen from the northwest
St Mary's Church, Chilton Location in Suffolk
Coordinates: 52°02′46″N0°45′15″E / 52.0461°N 0.7542°E / 52.0461; 0.7542
OS grid reference	TL889423
Location	Chilton, Suffolk
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
Website	St Mary's Church, Chilton, Suffolk
History
Dedication	St Mary
Architecture
Functional status	Redundant
Heritage designation	Grade I listed
Designated	23 March 1961
Architectural type	Church
Style	Perpendicular Gothic
Specifications
Materials	Flint nave, chancel and porch; brick tower and north chapel

St Mary's Church is a redundant Church of England parish church in the civil parish of Chilton, Suffolk, England. It is a Grade I listed building, ^[1] and is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. ^[2]

The church is about 550 yards (500 m) south of the Tudor Chilton Hall and 1+1⁄4 miles (2 km) east-northeast of the centre of Sudbury. To the north and east it is surrounded by farmland. To the south and west are the Sudbury eastern bypass and associated modern buildings on the outskirts of Sudbury. ^{[2] [3]}

History

The nave and chancel of the church are Perpendicular Gothic, built of flint in the 15th century. The south porch is also flint, but with brick quoins.

In the 16th century the Crane chapel north of the chancel and the west tower were added, and a Tudor window was inserted in the nave over the north doorway. All the 16th-century additions are built of brick.

The Crane chapel was built as a chantry chapel housing the table tombs of George Crane, who died in 1491, and Robert Crane, who died in 1500, and his wife. There is an alabaster recumbent effigy of George Crane on his tomb. After the Reformation the chapel continued as the Crane family mausoleum with the addition of the wall-mounted monument to Sir Robert Crane and his two wives. Sir Robert died in 1643 but he had the monument carved in 1626 by Gerard Christmas. ^[1]

By the 1970s the small population of the parish of Chilton could no longer support the church. The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich merged the benefice with that of St Gregory's Church, Sudbury and declared St Mary's redundant. In the 1980s the church building was vested in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. ^[4]

Architecture

The west tower has substantial brick angle buttresses. The tower and nave have flint battlements and the tower has crocketted pinnacles at the four corners. The Crane chapel is of two bays and its two northern corners have diagonal buttresses. The south porch has a moulded brick parapet. ^[1]

See also

• List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in the East of England

References

1. Historic England. "Church of St Mary (1351732)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 9 February 2014.
2. "St Mary's Church, Chilton, Suffolk". Churches Conservation Trust . Retrieved 9 December 2016.
3. "Chilton". Streetmap. Retrieved 1 March 2011.
4. "St Mary, Chilton". Suffolk Churches. Retrieved 7 September 2017.

Further reading

• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Radcliffe, Enid (revision) (1974) [1961]. Suffolk. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 165–166. ISBN   0-14-071020-5.

External links

• "St Mary's Church, Chilton, Suffolk". Churches Conservation Trust.