And so we came down out of the woods, over a railway line, past a field where two shire horses found us of interest, and crossed the Alde below the Mill. A winter storm had stripped one wall away, revealing the cogs and wheels, absurdly large and dangerous. The whole structure is held up by scaffolding and temporary joists; the owners plan to restore it as bed and breakfast accomodation, but it isn't a task I'd like to take on myself, nor one that my bank manager would approve of, I think.

Aidan's six year old, Jack, ran ahead of us down through the field towards the Little Glemham road. I was very impressed. We were at least three miles into our walk, and by now my children would have been lying on the ground, kicking and screaming at the unfairness of it all, blaming me loudly for removing them from a world of comfy chairs, MacDonalds and satellite television. But Jack is a country boy.

The day was brightening up after the rain that had caught us at Blaxhall, and Aidan's dog panted wildly as she led us onward. Across the fields, the trees were thoroughly Victorian, beckoning us closer to the edge of the Glemham estate, once home of the Norths, now home to the Cobbolds, a Suffolk family of great eccentrics, for whom Ipswich Town fans in particular have a great affection - the Cobbolds, after all, were the Men Who Made The Town.

St Andrew: Jack finds the snake.

I live beside Holywells Park, the Cobbold's other home, in the centre of Ipswich. But in the 1890s, that branch of the family died out, and they retrenched here. Today, Holywells Park is a public park, the Cobbolds' trout ponds now home to ducks and geese, their arboretum a recreational woodland. Holywells House was demolished after World War II, but Glemham Hall still remains, one of Suffolk's grandest sights alongside the A12.

Amongst the tree tops, a tower appeared, and we headed off the road down an asphalt track. At the end of it, like a secret, hidden by a cottage and the unresting castles of the elms, is St Andrew.

Very few people must find it, and until recently no keyholder was listed. But there are keys, and Aidan, fortuitously, lives next door to one of them. Jack ran ahead with it, but stopped short suddenly, while me and Aidan and Bella the dog examined the lych-gate. He shouted to us to come and look. It was an adder, lying on the path, quite dead. Its tail was chewed to a crisp, as if it had been worried by a cat or a fox. I shivered slightly, thinking of the gay abandon with which I plough through the overgrown shrubbery that is a typical Suffolk graveyard at this time of the year.

St Andrew is a singular church, for one major reason and several little ones. But before we went inside, we did our tour of the building - I always think of this as a kind of police check, the scene of the crime before it is disrupted by my visit. It is also a good way of checking up on the guidebooks, and here at the west end, we immediately found an error. The normally impeccable Mortlock reports two crowned lion headstops flanking the west doorway. But one is clearly a woodwose, its club raised to bash out the brains of its companion. Since the crowned lion is a symbol of the risen Christ, one wonders at the theology behind such a juxtaposition.

Lady Blanche's grey stone in front of Albert Speer at work in East Anglia - what on earth is going on?

To the north of the church is a most extraordinary extension. It is hard to think of it as a transept - it is nearly as long as the nave itself, and completely windowless. What on earth could it be? Surely not the work of J.P. St Aubyn, who restored this church in the 1850s? St Aubyn was an architect of some character - you can also find his work nearby at Great Glemham and Sternfield, as well as at Woolverstone and Huntingfield. No, this is grim, oppressive, almost Teutonic, as if Albert Speer had been working in the early years of the 19th century. It looms out towards the Hall, with Hall graves around it. If you don't know what it is, and haven't guessed, then you will shortly find out.

Looking east. The Tractarian sanctuary is a delight - but what's that off to the left?

An ugly sheet of perspex shields the badly weathered image of St Andrew above the south porch entrance. You step beneath, and into a gloomy interior. However, a flick of a few switches, and the inside fills with light. Turning east, the chancel is glorious; St Aubyn's vision of an Anglo-catholic heaven perfectly realised. The only jarring note is the massive classical column and archway entrance to the northern extension. You take a few steps, and all is revealed.

All is revealed: the North mausoleum from the chancel.

There, in grim isolation, sits one of the ugliest memorials to be found in any Suffolk church. It is a life-size statue, in white marble. He is Sir Dudley North MP, who died in 1829.

In one of those unlikely juxtapositions which occur whenever a building is refurbished continually over hundreds of years, the window to the west of the Mausoleum is by the great Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope.

MEA Rope's St Andrew with the Assumption (photo by Arthur Rope).

To the south of the sanctuary, there is a fascinating medieval survival. At the time of St Aubyn's restoration, a relief representation of the Holy Trinity was set into the wall. It is unlikely to have come from this church originally (St Aubyn had excellent contacts among the London ecclesiastical suppliers) and it is badly mutilated, but the figure of the crucified Christ is clearly discernible. He hangs between the Father's knees, the dove of the Holy Spirit descending above his head. More complete examples can be found at Framlingham and Blythburgh.

The Cobbolds are nothing if not Conservative, but the parvenu qualities of the Iron Lady would not have appealed to Lady Blanche. Anxious to assert the correct and appropriate protocols, an official of the Football Association approached our heroine, and invited her to meet Mrs Thatcher. "Mrs Thatcher?" said Lady Blanche. "You mean - Margaret Thatcher?" The F.A. official confirmed that they were one and the same. "Good God", replied the grand Old Lady. "Good God. I'd much rather have another Gin and Tonic".

Come and pay homage, I implore you.

St Andrew, Little Glemham, is off of a signposted side road near the middle of this A12 village, between Wickham Market and Saxmundham. There is now a keyholder listed according to churchwarden Jane Stanford, who tells me that my statement that 'very few people must find the church' is 'incomprehensible'. She also informs me that some of the information given in this account is incorrect and totally inaccurate, so be warned.

Please note that one of the photos is by Arthur Rope, and retains his copyright.