Details
LITTLE BRADLEY
832/5/347 LITTLE BRADLEY
19-DEC-61 CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS
I
DATES OF MAIN PHASES, NAME OF ARCHITECTS
Mid eleventh-century origins, including nave, tower, and western part of chancel, The eastern part of the chancel is not much later, probably dating to the late C11 or early C12. The top of the tower was added or rebuilt in the mid C15 (probably c. 1455), and new windows were also added. The former rood screen and rood stair may be contemporary. There appears to have been additional work in the C16, notably the tower door and some windows. It was restored in the 1870s.
MATERIALS
Flint rubble with stone dressings, red tiled roofs, timber S porch.
PLAN
Aisleless nave with S porch, round W tower with octagonal top, chancel.
EXTERIOR
The W tower is of two stages. The lower stage is round and dates to the mid to late C11. It is probably Anglo-Saxon in origin, but it may have been built soon after the Conquest as it has a slight herringbone pattern in some of the masonry. The tower plinth is slightly different to that of the nave, suggesting that it was an addition. There are small, round-headed windows in the N, W and S faces, heavily renewed. There is no W door. The upper stage, above the nave roofline, is polygonal and was added in the mid C15. It has a stepped, embattled parapet and 2-light Perpendicular windows in the cardinal faces.
The short nave is also mid C11, and more definitely Anglo-Saxon as it has long-and-short quoins, much renewed, at the corners. There is a blocked N door with long-and-short quoins, with a two-light, square-headed Perpendicular window in the upper part. There is another, larger Perpendicular window further E in the nave N wall. There are two different Perpendicular windows on the S side E of the porch, one of 3 lights with a depressed head, possibly C16, the other of two-lights with a hood mould and very similar to that on the N.
The chancel is long and has shallow projecting sections on either side in the western half. These do not reach the eaves and die back into the main wall. They have quoins at their eastern corners, and probably represent the remains of the original low, short, square chancel. Each has a single light window in the middle, that on the N with a pointed, foiled head, that on the S is plain and square. There is also a blocked low-side window on the S and the remains of a rood stair are also visible in the angle between nave and chancel on the S. The chancel appears to have been raised and lengthened shortly after the church was built. There are two blocked, monolithic-headed windows of the late C11 or vey early C12 in the E wall, probably the remains of a triplet of windows. There are also two similar monolithic headed windows in the eastern part of the N chancel wall, the more western is blocked. The E window is Perpendicular of 3 lights, and the SE chancel window is probably C16 and has two lights under a segmental head with a hood mould and head stops.
The C19 S porch is timber on flint and ashlar dwarf walls. The timber sides have Flamboyant tracery and pierced bargeboards, and may incorporate some medieval timber. It covers a C11 doorway, tall with a round head it has a slight continuous chamfer and no capitals.
INTERIOR
The interior is painted and plastered. The inner face of the S door has the quoins revealed, including an area of long and short work. The tower arch is round and stands on chamfered imposts. It is blocked by a door with a Tudor arched frame with carved spandrels. The tympanum above the lintel is plain. The tower windows have deep, squared splays.
The chancel arch is round-headed and has chamfered imposts with a small, rounded moulding. It may be an alteration of the Norman period when the chancel was extended. There are deep notches in the imposts for a former screen. The surviving early chancel window has a deep splay with round head.
The roofs are C19. The nave roof has tie beams and arched braces, collars and king posts over. It is boarded behind the rafters. The chancel roof has an embattled wall plate and embattled tie beam at the entrance to the sanctuary. The sanctuary roof is boarded over.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES
There is a small piscina in a recess above a dropped sill sedilia. C15 octagonal font. Probably C19 or C20 panelled timber drum pulpit on a short stone stem with a C18 hexagonal tester. C19 choir stalls with shouldered ends. C19 nave benches with square-headed ends and blind traceried panels with miniature buttresses.
Some fragments of medieval glass including canopies and the letter A, probably largely C15, have been reassembled into a cross in the chancel S window. Three light nave S window has C19 glass of St Andrew, St Stephen and St Paul as a memorial to John Daye, the C16 printer, installed by the Company of Stationers. Another good late C19 or early C20 2-light window of the Good Sheppard in the nave.
Good monuments including a brass to John Daye (d.1584) a well-known Elizabethan printer of religious works including the Book of Common Prayer and Foxe¿s Book of the Martyrs, with a punning inscription, very complete. Several other brasses, including one of 1605 to John and Jane le Hunte, and and a mid C16 carved wall monument to Richard le Hunte (d.1540).
HISTORY
Great and Little Bradley are listed together simply as Bradley in Domesday Book of 1086. There was a church in Bradley in 1086, and while it is usually assumed to have been that at Great Bradley, it could have been the one at Little Bradley as Little Bradley church is earlier than Great Bradley church. A will of 1455/6 may give a date for the building or rebuilding of the top of the tower. In the mid C19, Little Bradley was said to have an average 200 attendees on a Sunday, but this was probably the total number over a three month period, giving an average Sunday attendance of 16-17, a more reasonable number for a village which then had 35 inhabitants.
SOURCES
Cautley, H M, Suffolk Churches (5th ed, 1982), 228
Mortlock, D P, The Popular Guide to Suffolk Churches, I: West Suffolk (1988), 140-41
Pevsner, N, rev. E Radcliffe, The Buildings of England: Suffolk (1974), 335
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The church of All Saints, Little Bradley, Suffolk is designated at Grade I for the following principal reasons:
* An outstanding example of a very complete mid C11 church with some early C12 additions, but few subsequent changes.
* Excellent monuments, including one to John Daye, the well known Elizabethan printer.
