St. Mary is on the edge of Combs Ford on the outskirts of Stowmarket, but the setting is rural: you reach it along a doglegging lane from the top of Poplar Hill, and the last few hundred yards is along a narrow track which ends in the wide graveyard. The church is set on low ground, hills rising away to north and south, and the effect, on looking down at it, is of a great ship at rest in harbour.
With its grand tower, aisles and clerestories this is a perfect example of a 15th Century Suffolk church in all its glory. The gloom of the north porch leads you into a tall, wide open space, full of light, as if the morning had followed you in from outside.
The first striking sight is the three great bells on the floor at the west end. They represent the late medieval and early modern work of three of East Anglia's great bell-founding families, the Brayers of Norwich and the Graye and Darbie families of Ipswich. It is fascinating to be able to see them at such close quarters. Stretching eastwards from the bells is a range of beautifully carved 15th century benches with their predominantly animal bench ends, some medieval and some clever Victorian copies.
The great glory of this church, however, is the range of 15th century glass towards the east end of the south aisle. It was collected together in this corner of the church after the factory explosion that damaged most of Stowmarket and killed 28 people in August 1871.
Under the vast chancel arch is the surviving dado of the late 14th/early 15th Century roodscreen, a substantial structure carved and studded with ogee arches beneath trefoiled tracery, the carvings in the spandrils gilded. At the other end of the church, the font is imposing in the cleared space of the west end. It is contemporary with the roodscreen, so this is a building that is not far off being all of a piece: the fixtures and fittings of a new building roughly a century before the Reformation; almost unique in East Anglia.
The above the text contains excerpts from Simon Knott's excellent website www.suffolkchurches.co.uk , with grateful thanks.
If anyone would like to expand this Church Micro numbered series please do. Please contact sadexploration via www.geocaching.com so that he can keep track of the church numbers and names to avoid duplication.