email: simon@suffolkchurches.co.uk

 

St Peter, Sibton

  Sibton is one of those Suffolk villages which barely exists. Along the busy Yoxford to Stowmarket road, the farmhouses and cottages cluster rather more closely together for a moment. The grand, Italianate splendour of Sibton Hall is straight out of Jane Austen, there are ruins of a Cistercian Abbey off in the fields, and a brief flash of a church through the trees above the road. In a car, you might easily miss it.

Coy behind the pines, the easily missable St Peter - and what a pity that would be!

This would be a pity, for St Peter is a fascinating church, with one of the loveliest 18th century memorials in the county. It also once had a spire like neighbours Yoxford and Middleton, but this one came down about 200 years ago, and was never replaced. Instead, the stately 15th century tower stands tall above its contemporary north aisle.

  
  This presents us with a bit of a puzzle, for the north doorway into this aisle is clearly Norman. Perhaps it was moved northwards when the aisle was built, or, more excitingly, perhaps it was taken from the suppressed Abbey across the way. This is more likely than it seems, for the interior arcade also predates the aisle, and almost certainly came from the Abbey.

What is there to see inside? Well, the west end is admirably free of clutter, and the Victorians moved the font into the north west corner, between two gorgeous windows that fill this area with white light.

The font stem has a couple of Suffolk's finest woodwoses, cousins to the more famous spandrel-dweller at neighbouring Peasenhall.

One of the Chapman brasses.

There are a couple of excellent brasses, which you might easily miss, as they are hidden beneath carpets. Lift the one at the east end of the nave to discover the 1574 brass to Edmund and Margaret Chapman. You'l see straight away that it is a palimpsest - that is to say, a single brass made up of other brasses that have been previously used for other purposes.

  

A wild man of the woods on the font stem.

  
 

The Barker memorial.

   Their children line up behind them, boys to the left, girls to the right.

In the chancel is the more famous one to Edmund and Maryon Chapman of 1626. Unfortunately, it is trapped under the choir stalls.

It may surprise regular users of this site to learn that my favourite piece here is the early 18th century wall monument to Sir Edmund and Lady Mary Barker. He was Lord of the Manor, and Mortlock thinks them accurate life portraits.

They died in the 1690s, and they sit in bust form beneath their achievement of arms.

What makes it so lovely, though, is that their two infants recline on the ledge below them. One, rather sadly, is wrapped in a shroud, and the other leans on a skull, to show that they predeceased their parents.
 
 

Baby in her shroud, above. Her big sister leans on a skull below.

Either side of the chancel arch are pairs of gorgeous niches, as at Risby, formerly home to images, and serving altars beside them. They still retain their original colouring, red to the south and green to the north.

Niches to the north...

  

...and to the south of the chancel arch.

This is a lovely old church, and full of character, despite, or perhaps because of, the rather heady aroma of bat urine. It is, as I have said, a tiny parish, and Raymond Catchpole of the Friends of St Peter tells me of their great efforts to raise £50,000 over the last four years. Much of this is earmarked to repair the north aisle roof; but there are also plans to reorder the building, in an attempt to extend its use to a wider community beyond the parish. A further £45,000-odd is currently under offer from English Heritage, and so perhaps a day will come when this church is more easily visitable than today.

I stood outside in the pine trees of the ancient churchyard, the cars hurtling past below on the busy road. It was hard to imagine this place before the ravages of the Reformation overtook it, but the village sign across the road was a reminder of past glories. Thanks to the tremendous efforts of the Friends, the PCC and the parishioners, perhaps Sibton will once again become a familiar stopping-off point. Mind you, they'll have to build a car park.

I took the key back to the churchwarden. He told me that the church still maintains a service a month, and isn't actually a parish church at all.

It is a chapel of ease to St Michael, Peasenhall, in the Parish of Peasenhall with Sibton. He'd actually like to restore its parish status, and there is some support for this; but there is opposition too. Like all parishes, there is a healthy dynamic here, and one would not want, or expect, everybody to agree.

St Peter, Sibton, is to the south of the A1120 Yoxford to Stowmarket road, between Yoxford and Peasenhall. It is locked, with several keyholders listed.