guntonbenet

St Benedict, Gunton, Lowestoft

The pretty bell tower of this 1956 church sticks its head up between the lush trees of pleasantly suburban Yarmouth Road in North Lowestoft. The ancient village name is a courtesy title, really; this church is as close to the centre of Lowestoft as the Borough parish church of St Margaret, and it is hard to see that there was ever a village here. There probably wasn't; Gunton Hall, with the pretty round-towered medieval parish church of St Peter, lies some way to the north of here, and the hall grounds are now the home of the American theme park Pleasurewood Hills, Suffolk's biggest tourist attraction.

Refined Metroland architecture - even if the bell tower does look a bit like a fire brigade practice tower.

The church is quite a large one for its age, designed, like nearby St Luke, to be both parish hall and church. Its red brick and pantiles give it a metroland air, quite in keeping with the Yarmouth Road bungalows and houses of twenty years earlier.

The bell, and the dedication, are here because of the German bombing of the city of Norwich during the Second World War.

The church of St Benedict there was gutted in the Blitz; after the war, the Diocese of Norwich used the war damage reparation money to build a new church here, instead. The bell is from the former Norwich church.

Ignore the tower, and the church looks even more like a house, because of its slightly unnerving 1950s domestic windows, reminding me of those in the house I grew up in.

As at St Luke, the hall is divided from the sanctuary by a screen, and this church shares services with St Peter. It is all rather understated, unlike the blousy neighbouring Mormon church, with its hi-tech spire. Another good modern church along this road is the Trinity Methodist church towards the town centre.

Incidentally, although St Benedict matches architecturally its leafy surroundings, it isn't here to serve them. Behind it, Hollingsworth Road is the spine road of the large and challenging Gunton estate, a high density 1960s housing estate built for workers in Lowestoft's many factories of the time. It has since been devastated by unemployment, and one hopes that St Benedict has been the root of some comfort.

The bell of Norwich St Benedict now rings out over north Lowestoft.

If you follow Hollingsworth Road southwards, you eventually reach the suburb of Normanston, where you'll find St Margaret. This is Lowestoft's medieval parish church, one of the biggest churches in Suffolk.

St Benedict, Gunton, Lowestoft, is located just off of Yarmouth Road on Hollingsworth Road, to the north of the town centre. You are unlikely to find it open.