It is a great tribute to County Council planning policy that this little church can seem so lonely and isolated, despite the fact that the thirty thousand houses of the housing estates of south-west Ipswich are barely a mile away, and the great A12 rift valley lies half a mile to the west. Here, in high summer, the birds boil out of this glorious sanctuary of a churchyard, and in winter you could be in any century.

Part of its remoteness is because the village itself is a good half mile away, and there can't be many places so close to Ipswich that it is still possible to spend an hour without seeing another human being. Because of this, the church is kept locked, I'm afraid. So I came here on the day of the Suffolk Historic Churches Bike Ride 2002, and found it open. I had come from St Peter Stoke Park, and if there is a greater contrast anywhere in England between two churches a mile apart, then I beg to be informed of it.

The view from the road is delightful, with the north chancel chapel creating a long vista. As many do around here, St Mary has a tower to the south of the nave, and the porch is beneath it. You step into a gorgeously unkempt interior; the decorators have been kept at bay here for many a long year, and the smell of damp is the same one that our ancestors experienced. As long as the place doesn't fall down, long may it remain so.

St Mary is one of the most interesting of all the outer-suburban Ipswich churches, simply because it has more medieval and early-modern survivals than any other. Pride of place goes to the rood-screen dado, despite the fact that it is terribly badly mutilated. William Dowsing came here on January 29th, 1644. It was a Monday morning, and Dowsing was setting to work that day on the Ipswich churches. He had already visited Chattisham, Copdock and Washbrook that morning, and this day would see visits to a record eleven churches. He found much to do at Copdock and Washbrook, and didn't skimp here either, finding idolatrous images in stained glass, and brass inscriptions to melt down. The rood screen doesn't seem to have caught his attention - but then, none in all Suffolk did. Perhaps it was painted over, or maybe the vicious scratching out of the faces by the Anglicans a century earlier seemed enough hatred to unleash.

The dado contains fine Saints, including Suffolk's only St Sebastian, in hunting green. You can see enlargements of them to the left.

Also on the left, there is a fine looking old piscina in the south wall of the nave. Arthur Mee would probably call it ancient. Whatever, it looks as if it is melting.

The only surviving brass (because of Dowsing, we know that there were once others) lies in front of the screen - unfortunately, it is covered in perspex, and is impossible to photograph. I also fear that the damp trapped between the perspex and the brass cannot be doing it much good. It is to John Goldingham and his two wives (not at the same time, silly) and dates from about 1520, the eve of the Reformation. It is a fine survival, and deserves to be better known.

The north chancel chapel is a delight - dedicated as it seems to organ and cleaning implements, it is also home to a couple of gorgeously sentimental 17th century memorials. The best is by John Stone, and it is to Elizabeth Bloss. She died during the Commonwealth, and the tablet shows her three sons, and four daughters, kneeling in puritan piety over a prayer desk. It goes some way to compensate for the smashed stained glass and melted-down brasses that she was no doubt partly responsible for.

The font was deeply recut by the 19th century restorers - but again, perhaps as compensation, they have left us one of the county's best painted altarpieces. I gazed at it in contemplation for a while.

Then, heading west, I crossed the great rift valley of the A12 on a high bridge, finding myself at the similarly remote St Peter, Copdock, within five minutes.

Belstead's only surviving brass- a postcard available in the church (and not my copyright).

St Mary, Belstead, is just to the south of Ipswich, but is harder to find than you'd think. The village is signposted off of the Ipswich to Manningtree road near Wherstead. From there, follow signs to Copdock. Alternatively, follow the cycle path to Belstead village from the Thorrington Hall estate. The church is kept locked, although there is a keyholder listed.

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