English Church Architecture - Suffolk.
GEDDING, St. Mary (TL 952 581) (August 2004) (Bedrock: Neogene to Quaternary, Crag Group)
This church does have a tower of sorts (shown above, from the south), in spite of the Ordnance Survey's denial of the fact on its 1:50,000 "Landranger" map for the area (sheet 155), although it must be admitted that it is a low and rather paltry affair, with upper parts now of brick and a lower flint and pebble rubble stage distinguished only by flushwork on the outer faces of the diagonal buttresses. A semi-hexagonal stair turret projects from the S. wall and rises to the bell-stage, and the W. window has cinquefoil-cusped Y-tracery inside a four-centred arch (i.e. it is Perpendicular).
The church contains no other features of significance. The tower arch is formed of two hollow chamfered orders, of which the inner springs from corbels. The font is Perpendicular and has an octagonal bowl with blank arcading on its faces. Probably best is the nave roof, which is largely old and has scissor bracing above the collars. This is an early form of roof construction, traced by Cecil Hewitt at least back to c. 1220 (at St. Nicholas's chapel, Coggeshall in Essex), but it is one that continued in use for a long time afterwards. |