St Mary's Church, Stoke-by-Nayland

St Mary’s Church stands in the quiet village of Stoke-by-Nayland, its tall stone tower rising above the roofs of the surrounding cottages. The earliest parts of the building date from the late 13th or early 14th century, including the south porch and St Edmund’s Chapel built around 1318. Most of the rest was rebuilt in the 15th century in the perpendicular style under Sir John Howard, later Duke of Norfolk. Howard’s coat of arms can still be seen in several places inside the church. The tower reaches thirty-eight metres to the top of its pinnacles and is counted among the fifty finest medieval church towers in England. The church is recognised for features such as the groin-vaulted south porch with its restored bosses and a priest’s chamber above. The original 15th-century south doors carry a carved Jesse tree showing figures, birds and insects in oak. Inside, the font bears the rose en soleil badge of Edward IV and panels of the four Evangelists. John Constable painted the church many times and called the tower its grandest feature, while praising the great arch beneath as the crowning beauty of the interior. Visitors find brasses and monuments from the 15th and 16th centuries, including one to Lady Catherine Howard, whose funeral in 1465 was attended by Edward IV’s brothers. Another brass commemorates Sir William de Tendring from 1408, thought to be a portrait. The church also holds a two-manual pipe organ with parts dating from about 1834 and a ring of eight bells in the tower. The interior light falls on the restored woodwork and the plain glass of the windows, giving a sense of the building’s long history.