Church Micro 994... Westley Traditional Geocache

I have cycled past this church many, many times in my younger years when I used to do a newspaper round in the village.

St Mary was built in 1836 out of concrete, in an obstensibly Early English style, but the spire had to be removed in 1960, and with its squat little stump it looks like nothing so much as a church from an Italian hill-top village. The exterior cement had got rather ugly over the last few years, with its plaster cracking and falling off, but it has now been replastered and repainted, and is gleaming white and thoroughly bellissima. 
 
It was built to replace the church of St Thomas of Canterbury, which was badly damaged by a tower fall in 1744, and eventually abandoned. The new church was built on this hilltop site by the Marquis of Bristol, simply because he wanted to have something to look at from his Ickworth home while he ate his breakfast. Being a great fan of European travel, he would probably approve of the way his church looks now.
 
Courtesy of Simon Knott and www.suffolkchurches.co.uk