Welcome to St Marys of Wilby, you are looking for a small canister.
If you passed this church, you’d probably not think it was anything remarkable. You’d agree it was rather pretty, with its tiny clerestory, and that the churchyard was trim and well-cared for. Wilby is so small that you probably wouldn’t even notice you’d come through a village if it wasn’t for the church, sitting beside the winding road. There’s nowhere to park outside the church, so if you were in a car, and you missed the spaces outside the school, you would probably just keep going.
The attractive small church of St Mary sits at the centre of a small scattered settlement with few buildings around it. The rows of rough flint at the base of the north wall may be the remains of an earlier church. This was rebuilt with knapped flints in the C13th with south aisle, porch and clerestory. There was a major restoration in the C19th as the fabric was in a very poor state.
The tower is a typical Suffolk square tower with buttresses and battlements. The top course is rougher flint set in masonry which makes it look much paler than the rest of the building.
The porch is faced with carved stone and has empty arches which would have contained statues of saints, inside you are met by beautifuly carved statues and bench ends.
If you would like to add to the Church Micro series yourself then please look here
http://churchmicro.co.uk/
There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page that can be found at
http://www.15ddv.me.uk/geo/cm/index.html