CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS

CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS, CROWN STREET

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1342765
Date first listed:: 07-Aug-1952
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS
Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS, CROWN STREET

User submitted image — Uploaded by Robert Beech This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

Not all listed places are appearing on this map. We are investigating this issue and will have a fix in place as soon as we can. Updated: 6 February 2025.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2006-04-17
Reference:: IOE01/14527/09
Rights:: © Mr Richard Storey. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1342765
Date first listed:: 07-Aug-1952
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS
Statutory Address 1:: CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS, CROWN STREET

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS, CROWN STREET

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Suffolk
District:: West Suffolk (District Authority)
Parish:: Bury St. Edmunds
National Grid Reference:: TL 85604 63945

Details

TL 8563 NE, 639-1/11/320

BURY ST EDMUNDS, CROWN STREET (east side), Church of St Mary and attached wall and railings

07/08/52

GV

I

Parish church. C14 and C15, on an earlier site. In flint and stone, ashlar-faced on the south and west; lead-covered roofs. PLAN: nave and chancel, north and south aisles, north-west tower.

EXTERIOR: embattled parapets to nave and aisles. The south aisle, in fourteen bays, has 3-light transomed and traceried windows with 2-centred arches; stepped buttresses between the windows and a diagonal buttress at the south-west angle. The last four bays to the east were an extension forming a chantry chapel given by Jankyn Smith between 1463 and 1473. He also gave the slightly earlier extension to the north aisle to form a chapel, and the sanctuary. The west front is similar to that of the Cathedral of St James, Angel Hill (qv) with crocketed finials, a stepped gable to the nave and a 5-light transomed window; 4-light transomed windows to the 2 aisles. An empty canopied niche on each side of the west door. A stepped east gable to the nave with two rood-stair turrets which have tall crocketed spires and finials. The battlemented C14 tower is flint-faced in three stages with stone string-courses in between. Stepped angle buttresses, stone-faced, with flint panels. The south side, and part of the east and west sides, project into the north aisle, and this reduces the number of windows. A 3-light traceried window to each face of the top stage; 2-light windows to the middle stage, and on the west side two long narrow 2-light transomed windows to the 1st stage. Re-used C14 north doorway within the Nottyngham porch. This ornate porch, built in memory of John Nottyngham and his wife, dates from the 1440s and is stone-faced, with pinnacles, a crocketed gable and three niches above the entrance. The stone vaulted ceiling is panelled with a wheel of blank arches and an open pendant as the hub. A short stretch of the precinct wall of the Abbey of St Edmund adjoins the north-west angle buttress of the tower: the stone quoins of the buttress stop near the top of the wall, which rises to approx. 4 metres in part, dropping to between 1 and 2 metres. A later doorway has been cut through it. Attached to the north-west corner of the west front is a 60m stretch of C19 cast-iron railings approx 1m high, which divide the churchyard from Crown Street. Set on a low stone plinth. The railings, which have square shafts set diagonally, topped by fleur-de-lys finials, are divided into short bays by main verticals with iron-twist to the shafts and 4-way fleur-de-lys finials, and include a small gate. A stretch in similar style and materials 74m long is attached to the south-west corner of the west front and runs down the south side of the church along Honey Hill. This includes two pairs of double gates.

INTERIOR: nave arcades in ten bays with very tall shafted arches. Small capitals on thin triple shafts to the arch openings only. Impressive nave roof in which hammer-beam trusses alternate with moulded arched-brace trusses. Large recumbent angel figures to the hammer-beams, thought to represent the procession at the Coronation of the Virgin. Carved spandrels to the arched braces; tracery to the collar braces; wall plates with demi-angels; wall posts resting on corbels with carved figures. Above the chancel arch a window inserted by Cottingham in the 1840s has 6-pointed star tracery. The C14 wagon roof in the chancel has cusped panels with carved bosses and a painted cornice with angels carrying scrolls. The former Lady Chapel in the south aisle was converted to a chantry chapel by John Baret (d.1467); it has a boarded and painted ceiling with panels, each bearing his motto 'Grace Me Governe'. Against the south wall, his table tomb with a cadaver monument lying upon it.

(BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 142-144; Paine C: St Mary's Bury St Edmunds: Bury St Edmunds: 1986-).

Listing NGR: TL8560463945

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 466792
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Paine, C, St Mary's Bury St Edmunds, (1986)
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk, (1974), 142-144

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.