If the village is rather mundane, then the same cannot be said of St Andrew. You head out across the heath towards the fantasy holiday village of Thorpeness, which we will also come back to, and then turn southwards on a track through the forest, out into the pines and broom. Incongruously, a row of 19th century almshouses looms into view, looking for all the world as if it had been picked up from the terraces of east Ipswich and dumped here. And there, at the western end, is the delightful church of St Andrew, looking very pretty among the pine trees, even on this dull, dark, dismal day.

On a dull, dark, dismal day in East Suffolk: St Andrew from the north east.

At first sight, it is entirely Victorian, and might even be contemporary with the terrace. However, a blocked door and lancet in the south chancel wall give us a probable original date of about 1200, and a rood loft stair buttress also tells us of this former, Catholic liturgical age.

I liked the banked seats at the west end, very much in the 19th century style, and above them is an excellent stained glass window by Alexander Gibbs, showing the disabled man being lowered by his friends through the roof to Christ. There is another fine modern window of St Andrew in a lancet in the south side.

The east end is outrageously camp, Victorian sentiment at its best. The reredos is all blue and red highlighting, and if it rather overwhelms the little church, it is better than the run of the mill 19th century off-the-peg stuff you so often see elsewhere.

But the light outside was the colour of mud; and, to be honest, I made a bit of a pig's ear of photographing the windows of this church. I shall have to go back and have another go - these will have to do for now.

A grim old day, actually; two rather badly photographed windows.

Above, the friends of the disabled man lower him through the roof to Christ.

Right, a lancet containing St Andrew.

As I reached it, I was staggered by the massed ranks of large tomb chests on either side of it; Ogilvies to the left of me, Ogilvies to the right. It is the grandest collection of 20th century family tombs in all Suffolk, not excluding the Quilters at Bawdsey. The Ogilvies were fabulously well-to-do, and their name is all over this part of Suffolk, including those almshouses towards Leiston.

On a dull, wet, grim, etc., etc., the Ogilvies sleep peacefully. The central calvary is to just one of their number.

The Ogilvies lived at Sizewell Hall, and quite literally shaped the map of Suffolk; theirs was the responsibility for building Thorpeness, the jolly holiday resort on the coast a mile to the east of here, and for the land on which the Sizewell nuclear reactor was built, also a mile away.

But best of all, they are thanked every wet Saturday by the divorced and separated fathers of Ipswich, who can let their temporary charges loose in the Ogilvie Room at Ipswich Museum, the biggest public collection of Victorian stuffed birds in the Kingdom. There are simply thousands of the things, including a mighty representation of Bass Rock, and all manner of exotic creatures who met their maker during a flight over the Ogilvies' substantial domain. Ironically, the RSPB's huge Minsmere reserve stretches north of the Ogilvies' property today.

On more than one case, it says this is the only example of this bird ever collected in Suffolk, so we may presume that Lord Ogilvie killed an awful lot of birds to make sure that he got these, a thought that has struck me repeatedly on my many visits to the museum. I remember being in the Ogilvie collection one day when a similar thought had obviously dawned on a small boy.

"Dad", he said, "were these birds dead before they got stuffed?"

"Yes of course", replied his father indulgently.

"So - how did they die?" asked the little boy.

The Father was silent for a moment, thinking hard. "Well", he began, "they were all very old..."

No angels at Mons for Major Croft.

I wandered around the Ogilvies, but the rain became more insistent, so I went back to the church. It was only now that I noticed a simple brass memorial on the south wall of the chancel. It remembers forty-four year old Benjamin Croft, whose name also appears on the World War I roll opposite. What makes him significant (he isn't an Ogilvie, after all) is that he was killed on 10th November 1918, the last full day of the Great War. What a crappy piece of luck for him and his family. A feeling of heaviness came over me, a mixture of anger and sadness, I suppose. I turned to go. The day was ending. I had hoped to head on to find the site of the lost church at Thorpe, and survey the outside, at least, of the 1930s church of St Mary at Thorpeness. But it was not to be, and these would have to wait for another day.

St Andrew, Aldringham, is located to the south of the B1353 Aldringham to Thorpeness road, about two miles south of Leiston. I found it open, and understand that it is kept so everyday.