Creeting All Saints

All Saints, Creeting St Mary

The southern part of the village of Creeting St Mary, roughly that beyond the A14, was once Creeting All Saints, and the parish church shared a churchyard with that of Creeting St Mary. All Saints was a round-towered church, but seems to have been built without any foundations, which suggests either antiquity or extreme carelessness on this exposed hilltop.

The wise man builds his house upon the rock. The former location of Creeting All Saints.

Whatever, it was comprehensively wrecked beyond repair by a storm in 1800. Some of the masonry may have been incorporated into a transept built to accomodate the All Saints parishioners in the adjacent church of St Mary; this transept has also disappeared, replaced by a huge and graceless north aisle in the 1870s.

Those helpful people at County Hall.

Nothing remains of All Saints, although it is possible to imagine its location, since the slope of the hill is levelled towards the south west of the graveyard. There is also a plaque put up by the District Council, giving information about the church. You can also see the font from All Saints, because it is in the 19th century church at Stowupland.

Some of the gravestones here would have been in existence before All Saints' demise. But don't be fooled by their location; they've been reordered since.

The site of Creeting All Saints church is within the graveyard of the existing church of Creeting St Mary. You'll find that on the main road through the village north of the A14 at the Needham Market interchange. The former church stood about 30m sw of St Mary.

After the Reformation, this village was commonly known as Creeting Two Churches. All Saints has now gone, and St Mary is so hard to get into that it might as well be called Creeting No Churches today.