St Mary - Belstead, Ipswich, Suffolk - Medieval Churches on Waymarking.com

"St Mary is one of the most interesting of all the outer-suburban Ipswich churches, simply because it has more medieval and early-modern survivals than any other. Pride of place goes to the roodscreen dado, despite the fact that it is terribly badly mutilated. William Dowsing came here on January 29th, 1644. It was a Monday morning, and Dowsing was setting to work that day on the Ipswich churches. He had already visited Chattisham, Copdock and Washbrook that morning, and this day would see visits to a record eleven churches. He found much to do at Copdock and Washbrook, and didn't skimp here either, finding idolatrous images in stained glass, and brass inscriptions to melt down. The rood screen doesn't seem to have caught his attention - but then, none in all Suffolk did. Perhaps it was painted over, or maybe the vicious scratching out of the faces by the Anglicans a century earlier seemed enough hatred to unleash.

The panel figures are arranged so that female Saints are on the north side, and male Saints on the south side. Several panels are almost completely obscured as a result of the Anglican vandalism of the 1540s, but they include St Sitha with her bunch of keys, St Ursula holding a ship and an arrow, a female figure who is probably St Margaret, two Bishops, St Lawrence with his grid iron, St Stephen holding stones, St Edmund in royal robes with an arrow and St Hubert with his bow - I had previously identified this last figure as St Sebastian, but I am pretty sure now that it is St Hubert. Interestingly, three of these figures are shown holding arrows.

Just to the south of the screen is a fine-looking old piscina in the south wall of the nave. It looks as if it is melting, and it probably served an altar which was here before the rood screen was built. The only surviving brass (because of Dowsing, we know that there were once others) lies in front of the screen. Back in 2002, it was covered in perspex, obstensibly to protect it, but of course the damp was collecting beneath it. Now, it is free and able to breathe, and is very beautiful. It is to John Goldingham and his two wives (not at the same time, silly) and dates from about 1520, the eve of the Reformation. It is a fine survival, and deserves to be better known.

The north aisle is a curiosity, because although the windows in it have medieval tracery, the arcade which separates it from nave and chancel is clearly Victorian. The north chancel chapel is a delight, home to a some gorgeously sentimental 17th century memorials. The best is by John Stone, and it is to Elizabeth Blosse. She died during the Commonwealth, and the tablet shows her three sons, and four daughters, kneeling in puritan piety over a prayer desk. It goes some way to compensate for the smashed stained glass and melted-down brasses which she was no doubt partly responsible for. Other memorials are to Tobias Blosse, her father-in-law, and some austere memorials of a century later. I had found this aisle full of clutter six years previously, but the enthusiastic parishioners of Belstead had worked hard to bring it back to order.

There is a modern yet rustic roof to the nave, constructed by a local firm in the 1930s. Roy Tricker notes in the church guide that the great Munro Cautley, at that time Diocesan architect, submitted an ambitious plan for a double hammer beam roof, and then went off in a huff when his plans were rejected."

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Building Materials: Stone

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