About St Mary's, Redgrave

St Mary the Virgin stands as the ancient mother church of the Redgrave parish, built mainly in the mid-14th century in the rich Decorated Gothic style, almost certainly on the site of a Saxon church recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. The Abbots of Bury St Edmunds Abbey held the manor (granted to them around 1005) and were the driving force behind its construction. The church sits in a dramatic, isolated spot about a mile from the modern village – possibly near the site of an earlier Saxon hall or the 1211 hunting lodge of Abbot Samson – which explains why it feels so grand and solitary amid the open fields.

Everything about the building is on a generous scale. The magnificent seven-light east window, the 14th-century arcades with quatrefoil piers, the 15th-century hammerbeam roof, and the elegant Perpendicular clerestory (with flint flushwork monograms by the Aldryche masons of North Lopham) all speak of medieval wealth and confidence. Inside you’ll find a beautiful 14th-century octagonal font carved with eight heads, a triple sedilia in the sanctuary, and fragments of a medieval wall painting discovered during later restoration.

The Bacon family connection dominates the interior. After the Reformation, Sir Nicholas Bacon (Lord Keeper to Queen Elizabeth I and father of philosopher Francis Bacon) bought the manor in 1545 and began building Redgrave Hall. The church became the family’s mausoleum. Fine marble effigies of Sir Nicholas and his wife Anne (carved by the great sculptor Nicholas Stone around 1624) and other elaborate Bacon monuments fill the north aisle and chancel, along with hatchments and tablets. A later owner, Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice, has an especially grand marble monument by Thomas Green of Camberwell (costing £1,500 in 1709–10). Even Cardinal Wolsey was rector here in 1506, though there’s no evidence he ever visited.

Over the centuries the church served the whole parish, including the Chapel of Ease at Botesdale. A mission room built in the village in 1897 later became All Saints Church. By the late 20th century the cost of maintaining the huge medieval building became unsustainable. St Mary’s was declared pastorally redundant on 1 April 2005 and vested in the Churches Conservation Trust on 1 October 2005. The Redgrave Church Heritage Trust was formed by local people to support the CCT with events, concerts, exhibitions, and practical upgrades (including a small kitchen and toilets in the tower). Prince Charles even visited in 1993 for a Music in Country Churches concert.

The surprising recent discovery in late 2010, during a rehearsal for a musical in the church, local actress Kathy Mills stepped on a marble flagstone near the altar. The stone suddenly gave way and her foot disappeared into a dark void below. The wooden beams supporting it had completely rotted, revealing a forgotten 500-year-old family vault with stone steps leading down – something the current custodians had no idea still existed beneath the floor. The discovery (widely reported at the time) caused quite a stir, led to a full investigation, and actually helped galvanise even stronger local support for the church’s future.

Today St Mary’s is lovingly preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust and the Redgrave Church Heritage Trust as a Grade I listed building of national importance. Regular worship has moved to the more convenient All Saints in the village and the sister churches in the benefice (including St Botolph’s Chapel of Ease in Botesdale and St Mary’s in Rickinghall). The building remains open to visitors and continues to host concerts, exhibitions and special events – a magnificent survivor of over 700 years of Suffolk history.