"The setting is lovely; the church sits above the road on a soft cushion of green, the old school beside it. The red-brick tower is elegant and tall, and it might surprise you learn that it is neither medieval or Victorian. It was one of the earliest Suffolk towers built specifically to accomodate recreational bell-ringing, dating as it does from the last years of the 17th century, when this sport was beginning to take off. We know it was built at the behest of the Rector Thomas Cambourne, who also paid for the bells; a plaque remembering this is set in the west wall of the tower.
It is interesting to compare Drinkstone's tower with earlier Tudor red-brick towers like Hemley and Charsfield, and later 18th century ones ones like Grundisburgh and Cowlinge. It has more in common with the former than the latter, except that here there are classical louvred arches, perfectly designed for the bells to sound out from. If it looks more medieval than it is then it may be because of the lancet in the base stage, part of an 1860s upgrading by Edward Hakewill, whose trademark, a quatrefoil clerestory, is also in evidence above the aisles, looking very like the same thing at his Thurston acoss the A14. He appears to have raised the nave roof, or at least the angle at which it cuts into the tower, because this now looks rather awkward. If so, the east wall of the nave must also be his; the east window certainly is, and that whole face of the chancel has been rebuilt.
I find it hard to warm to Hakewill's work; his introduction of high gloom into the churches he restored seems intentional, and is often coupled with low aisles that only increase the austerity. Luckily, the great aisles here make the nave as wide as it is long, and I stepped in to a feeling of lightness. The great tower arch contains a modern ringing chamber in light wood, which looks splendid, and suggests that Cambourne's work is still very much appreciated.
The font is set against a pillar in the south arcade in the traditional manner, and is one of those arcaded octagonal fonts you find mainly in the east of the county, usually made from Purbeck marble. Or, at least, it appears to be, but I couldn't help wondering if it was actually an older, square font that had been cut down and decorated by someone locally. It just doesn't have the same finish as other fonts in this style.
The benches are Victorian, and there are some hefty bench end carvings. Mortlock thought they might be from the studio of the great Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham, whose work is much in evidence up the road in Woolpit, but I wasn't so sure. They don't seem to me to be of the usual delicacy of his work. The dove with an olive branch, for example, looks more like a chicken.
There are also a couple of medieval bench ends at the back, and they repay more than a passing glance. Although the bench ends are very bady damaged, they both have carvings on them. One is an angel who has had his front neatly sliced off, presumably by an iconoclast to eradicate the design on his shield, while the other is a version of the carving at Blythburgh which is often refered to as 'scandal' - a face carved into the poppyhead with an outstretched tongue.There is another near here at Bradfield St George.
This version is rather more elaborate than those two, because there are two further heads sticking out their tongues to left and right beneath the top head, and they have not been vandalised like he has."
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