So, I headed northwards out of Ipswich, picking up a few churches on the way, some old Inspiral Carpets stuff on the CD-Walkman to blot out the traffic noise. Soon, I hit the fields, and, turning the CD off to blessed quiet, I threaded through the tiny lanes that link the villages between Ipswich and Woodbridge, and then on to Wickham Market, Framlingham, and the hilly wilds to the north east. I was headed for the Norfolk border, but would never reach it; the strengthening north wind would turn me westwards before that, and instead I would find myself in Brundish, the only church that day that was completely new to me.

Once I reached the main road, I knew where I was on the map, and could work out where to go next.

I want to try and convey to you my feelings as I approached this church.

The day was still bright, but ponderous clouds hung in the sky, filling the air with a vaguely oppressive autumnal chill. The wind blustered through the looming, unkempt hedgerows. I had cycled about forty miles so far, and although my legs were beginning to ache a bit, I didn't feel tired in the least. Rather, I was exhilarated, as I often am at being somewhere completely new, on a fast bike, moving further away from home.

There was mud on the narrow lane from the ploughing now happening in the fields around, and woodsmoke in the air caught my throat, or perhaps it was a pyre of dried out oilseed rape stooks that wafted from the open valley. I hadn't seen another person since I'd left Badingham. The year had turned its back on summer, and the easy, confident warmth would not come again.

The south door, excitingly, is contemporary with its doorway, and the lock is probably original too. You step through, into what I think a quite remarkable interior. It is full of light, a wide open space, cavernous, with a chancel huge enough to shrug off its Victorianisation. There is a superb echo, deep and resonant. The effort of singing here must be amply repaid. "You and I could stand under that chancel arch and sing an aria", said the nice lady who welcomed me, "and we'd think we were at Covent Garden."

I smiled. "It must be great fun for small noisy children here", I observed. "Well, we don't have too many of those, I'm afraid", she replied.

Box pews, and an ocean of light.

Like most rural Suffolk churches, St Lawrence manages with a congregation of 10 or so now. Unfortunately, since it is much bigger than most, a considerable burden falls on the shoulders of the PCC. But they have much that is worth taking care of, for this church underwent an unusually light 19th century restoration. And even the Victorian chancel glass has gone, victim to a nearby wartime bomb.

Although the interior as we see it today is the result of the sacramentalist reordering that virtually all English churches underwent in the 1850s and 1860s, most of the furnishings are much earlier. Indeed, the final range of seating is medieval, with surviving, damaged bench ends. One purports to show an angel, another part of a griffin. But I wondered if they might actually be evangelistic symbols of St Matthew and St Mark. There is more heavily vandalised but similarly devotional work nearby at Tannington and Bedingfield.

And this is not all. The box pews are a delight. Dating from a time when the pulpit was probably in the centre of the church, they allow their inhabitants to face inwards, as all good box pews should. However, if you look closely, you'll see that some of them actually contain medieval benches. Even more exciting, there is a medieval misericord chair, bolted down in the north doorway. You lift it up, and underneath are the shadows of elaborate and mysterious carvings.

When you read Dowsing's journal, you start to fall into the rhythm of it, and it is possible to unpick this entry and comprehend exactly what happened here. Firstly, the word pictures means images in stained glass. So here, Dowsing records five stained glass images of Christ (probably a Gospel sequence, particularly forbidden) and divers (various) superstitious (theologically Catholic) pictures (probably legends of Saints, but possibly Gospel scenes). The apostles probably weren't in stained glass, or he would have said so. They were almost certainly on the rood screen. Although theologically very articulate, Dowsing isn't always very accurate, and it may have been a range of saints other than the twelve apostles that we traditionally understand by this reference. The crucifix was probably a surviving external stone crucifix, most of which had already been destroyed already elsewhere. It may have been on the gable end of the chancel.

The vicar of Brundish enjoyed two livings, that is to say he was Vicar of two places, because it was technically a chapel of ease to Tannington, two miles away. The puritans frowned on plurality, because it was a sign of a leisured clergy who paid a pittance to curates to do their work in their various parishes for them. But we do know that the Vicar here was a strong supporter of Dowsing and the puritans. His name was Edmund Evans; the previous year, he had put his name at the top of the local list of solemn league and covenant sympathisers, expressing support for the abolition of Bishops and of the episcopal church, and its replacement with a presbyterian system of church government. He would no doubt have encouraged Dowsing's work here, rejoicing in the sound of coloured glass crunching underfoot. A year after Dowsing's visit, he was dead, at the age of 61.

Fragments of glass survive. There are some in the nave, and a few in the wide, beautiful east window that otherwise engulfs the chancel with bright light. And much else has survived. Brundish's greatest treasures are its brasses.

The most famous of them sits under a tomb canopy on the north side of the nave. This isn't the brass's original position, but it is in remarkably good condition. It is to a Priest, Sir Edmund Brundish. It doesn't mean he was a knight - Sir was a courtesy title afforded to pre-Reformation Priests. There are very few surviving brasses of Priests in Suffolk, although I'd seen another one earlier in the day, at Melton.

Even more fascinating is the inscription beneath it, which is in Norman French: Sire Edmound de Burnedissh iadys person del esglise de castre gist icy dieu de salme eit mcy. Despite the invocation for prayers for his soul, the inscription survived Dowsing's visit - as John Blatchly observed, it was usual for Dowsing to leave inscriptions in French alone. This suggests that Dowsing believed that ordinary people could read Latin as late as the 1640s, but not French. For one, I find that very interesting.

A smashing palimpsest brass lies about ten feet to the south. This is to John Colby and his wife Alice. Pictured beneath them are their 4 sons and 9 daughters.

John died in 1540, and Alice in 1560, so what appears wholly medieval here actually dates from after the Reformation, which we may assume was a time of great ferment and theological debate, even in Brundish, where the minister was staunchly puritan.

Part of the original brass that was cannibalised for this has been traced to another church in the West Country.

There are other brasses, several of them to Colbys, up in the chancel. There were once more. Some that are now missing were certainly still here in the early 19th century. And at first I thought something else was missing, too.

I later discovered that John Blatchly had also found the screen while researching the new edition of Dowsing in the early 1990s. At that time, he discerned through the red and green paint the deep scratches and gouges left by iconoclasts at the level where the faces of the figures were. We usually assume such vandalism to be the work of reformers of a century earlier, but it appears as though Dowsing himself may have done this.

It is an indictment of all of us that the wholly dedicated and honourable people of this parish have to bear the burden of attempting to secure the survival of this church. St Lawrence is a national treasure; its loss would be a national loss, and its care should be a national responsibility.

There is a feeling of silence that infuses the light here. You get the same effect at Cotton and Raydon. It is the silence of a place waiting through the centuries. It is a humbling silence, a reminder that we are transient creatures, and our time is short. Change and decay in all around I see, but thou who changest not...

Brundish village is a long way from its church, and I headed off towards it now, having bid farewell to my friend, who entreated me to go to Wilby. "They've got a lot of bench ends there".

As I headed onwards, my heart fell again. Did I really want to spend the rest of my afternoon taking photographs of bench ends? No. Wilby would have to wait. Eventually, I reached Brundish village, and the crossroads by the pub. A sign pointed to Tannington; I had friends there. With some relief, I took it.

St Lawrence, Brundish, is about four miles north of Framlingham, right in the heart of Suffolk. Easiest access is from the A1120 near Saxtead, where it is signposted. The church is very keen for visitors to have a look around, and a notice at the gate lists keyholders addresses, directions and phone numbers, including the local code - hooray! The nearest one is a short walk away.