Overview
St Mary's is an Anglican church in Hadleigh, Suffolk. It is an active parish church in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and the archdeaconry of Ipswich. Its earliest parts date from medieval times; it is a Grade I listed building.
History and architecture
The church has a late 13th-century or early 14th-century tower and 14th-century aisles. The church was almost wholly reworked in the 15th century, when the arcades were rebuilt, and the clerestory, south porch and northeast vestry added. At this time also the whole building, except for the tower, was re-fenestrated. In the 19th century and early 20th century the church was extensively restored. The church is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings and has leaded roofs and spire. It has an aisled nave and chancel, a western tower, a two-storey south porch and a north vestry. On 26 April 1950 the church was designated a Grade I listed building. Its listing by Historic England records the principal reasons for designation as its size, the quality of its late-medieval architecture and its interior. It has been described as "a stunning wool church".
In the first half of the 15th century, the wealth of the town arose from wool cloth and the church was one of the first wool churches to be rebuilt in that period.
Setting
St Mary's churchyard is the site of the town's "most spectacular buildings". The church sits roughly at the centre, and the boundary is delineated by Church Walk. Directly opposite the church's west end stands Deanery Tower. Contemporaneous with the reconstruction of the church, the tower dates from the late 15th century and was built by William Pykenham, Archdeacon of Suffolk and rector at Hadleigh. Pykenham intended the tower as a self-sufficient gatehouse to the parsonage which stood closer to the river. It is constructed in red brick. James Bettley and Nikolaus Pevsner, in their Suffolk: West volume in the Buildings of England series, draw parallels with the gatehouse at Oxburgh Hall. Deanery Tower is a Grade I listed building. The Guildhall or Market Hall stands to the south of the church, across from the graveyard.
A timber-framed building of two and three storeys, it dates from the middle of the 15th century. It also has a Grade I listing. The Deanery abuts Deanery Tower and dates from the early 19th century, although the style is Tudor in emulation of the tower. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Gallery
File:St Mary's Church, Hadleigh by Gainsborough.jpg St. Mary's Church, Hadleigh by Thomas Gainsborough (c. 1748). Commissioned by the rector, Rev. Thomas Tanner, following renovations in the 1740s. It was painted on a large canvas by the young Gainsborough, with assistance from Joshua Kirby. The boys playing marbles on a tomb allude to a similar scene in Hogarth's Industry and Idleness which was published in 1747. File:It's Twisted - geograph.org.uk - 1438463.jpg St Mary's twisted spire
Further reading
* Mortlock, D. M, (2009), The Guide to Suffolk Churches, pp. 217–21