Bury St Peter

St Peter, Bury St Edmunds

We escaped the maze of tenements around St George, and headed into central Bury for St Peter. This is near to the famous Greene King brewery, in a 19th century artisan area, now yuppified. In a car it is rather difficult to get to, thanks to the closing off of the end of Hospital Road near the Elephant and Castle, so you are probably best to walk from the town centre.

From across the playground of the now closed school - a grim day.

St Peter was built as a mission outstation of the vast church of St Mary, and still has a sign saying 'St Peter's District Church' outside, as well as lots of notices giving evidence of its evangelical flavour (I suspect that St George is higher).

It is also quite big - yellow banded brick and Suffolk flint of the 1850s, with a tower that serves as a south porch in the Ipswich manner, surmounted by a sturdy spire that is more from the Midlands.

I rather liked it - on this grim day it looked very dramatic in the drizzle beneath the black clouds.

The architect was John Hakewill, brother of the more famous Edward. John's major moment in Suffolk is the rebuilding of Thurston, but I prefer this one, despite the fact that it isn't particularly in the Suffolk style, apart from the flint.

It has a wide graveyard that must have been beautiful at one time - unfortunately, if there were ever any gravestones, every single one has been removed, and the whole thing grassed over as a playing field for the adjacent St Mary's School, which has now closed.

No keyholder was listed; there was a firmly locked door, and I couldn't get in. In addition, I've never seen burglar alarms so prominent on a building before. One is above the main entrance, another on the vestry on the other side.

The north side - a Hakewill moment.

I'm not sure what it is about the Bury St Edmunds area, but virtually all the churches are kept locked. Most of the Ipswich area ones manage to stay open; perhaps crime really is that much higher in the Bury area. But I do like Bury - given that it has a population of barely 50,000 people, it is full of surprises, lots of interesting areas, fascinating churches, and the feel of a proper town.

St Peter can be found in central Bury St Edmunds, behind the Elephant and Castle pub on the double roundabout on Westgate Street, a short walk from the Catholic church of St Edmund. I found it locked without a keyholder.