Sudbury St Peter

St Peter, Sudbury

For most people, this is the most familiar of Sudbury's three ancient churches. In fact, it was not built as a parish church, but as a chapel of ease to St Gregory. It assumed parish status after the Reformation, but the two parishes were later again combined, and St Peter was declared redundant in 1972.

Outside, there stands a statue of Sudbury's most famous son, Thomas Gainsborough, although the Gainsboroughs themselves worshipped at All Saints, where you'll find their mausoleum.

Sudbury's most famous son outside Sudbury's most famous church - unfortunately, neither is still in business.

The outside of the church is rather curious, the aisles tapering towards the east, a reminder that this church was severely hemmed in by houses and shops until the 20th century.

This is one of those churches that presents us with a complete rebuilding of the 15th Century, as at Lavenham and Long Melford.

Although not as grand as either of those, it is evidence of the wealth of the cloth production industry in this area. St Gregory and All Saints were also rebuilt, but evidence of earlier churches survives there. Not so here. The aisles extend westwards, creating the familiar frontage to the Market Hill.

St Peter is a stately ship of a building, with as fine a setting as any urban church in the county. The Churches Conservation Trust does an excellent job in maintaining it in all its glory.

How wonderful if the redundant churches of Ipswich could have been cared for in the same way! Unfortunately, the CCT was not given the opportunity of looking after them.

There was an important 19th century restoration here at the hands of William Butterfield, one of his last works before the triumph of All Saints Margaret Street.

His is the glorious chancel and reredos, as well as the splendid interior of the south aisle chapel. The font was moved into the south aisle to create a grand processional vista from the west door.

This was one of Suffolk's Anglo-catholic shrines, and the ghosts of Butterfield and his kind are never far away.

The font has a splendid cover, with a lantern top. There is a story that the font was removed during the Puritan era to be used as a feeding bowl for pigs.

Butterfield used the surviving medieval evidence at St Gregory to design an elaborate canopy of honour, although perhaps he was overwriting medieval evidence himself. Along the eastern edge of the modern ceilure is written Bread of Life, Cup of Blessing, Precious Blood, poured for man, upon the Rood, Alleluia Alleluia.

Towards the west end of the nave, fine 18th century portraits of Moses and Aaron survive, from the former decalogue sequence. This would have been at the east end, before Butterfield got to work.

I'd like to tell you that these are post-modern ikons to St Nicholas. Well, I suppose that they are in a way. From the sublime to the wholly inappropriate.

Butterfield's glorious, gloomy reredos.

Detail: the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin.

I often say on this site that alternative uses need to be found for our historic buildings, so I suppose that I can hardly complain about the uses to which St Peter is put, which vary from the mundane to the wholly inappropriate.

Last Supper among the Christmas cards in the south aisle chapel.

The south aisle chapel. Well, I'm sorry to be grumpy, but...

When I last visited, it was being used as a card shop; the nave and aisles were full of silly little Santa Clauses, and the superb south aisle chapel, with its 15th century parclose screen to the chancel and retable showing the Last Supper, was carelessly stacked with displays.

The people behind the counter treated me with the utmost suspicion as I prowled about taking photographs; I think it was the way I moved one of their placards to photograph the font.

I had to lean right across a box of cards to get a photograph of the retable. One of the ladies came behind me to straighten it, in a disapproving manner.

I tried saying hello, but received no reply; instead, being met with stares and the kind of joylessness and lack of fellow feeling that I usually associate with custodians at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

The joint parish of St Gregory and St Peter had a school about halfway between the two churches, on North Street. It was demolished in the early 1990s, and is now a car park. But the elaborate gateway survives, as well as the grooves dug with coins into the bricks by generations of bored schoolchildren. Ghosts too, of a kind.

Butterfield's gorgeous canopy of honour, based on the surviving medieval evidence at St Gregory (now restored). Note the texts against the chancel wall.

St Peter is located on the Market Hill in the centre of Sudbury. A keyholder is available at a nearby shop (closed on Sunday) if the cardsellers, model train enthusiasts and double glazing salesmen aren't in possession.

School gate in North Street.