St Peter the Apostle
South Elmham, Suffolk
A tiny church full of history, discover St Peters and so much more in and around 'The Saints'!
Its main structural components comprise a chancel with heavily buttressed east gable, a fine interior timber roof to the nave, a timber framed south porch, and a simple square west tower in flint with stepped flushwork and stone panelled parapet. The churchyard is surrounded by a deep ditch on all sides and there is a large brick pantiled Sexton’s hut in the northwest corner.
The nave was formerly thatched as can be seen by the outline of the roof pitch on the east side of the tower. On the exterior of the south nave wall is a sundial, though it is now 15 minutes slow.
The main entrance to the church is through a magnificent 12th century south nave doorway with wonderful Norman mouldings. Inside is a 15th century Suffolk ‘lion’ font. A wonderful brick floor leads down to the sanctuary and the clean lines of the 13th century east window. This used to contain coloured glass, but nearby wartime bombing on the Green on the 17th and 23rd August 1940 blew it out, as well as stripping tiles from the roof. The replacement of clear glass has made the interior of this church delightfully light and airy.
The altar reredos portrays local saints, St Felix and St Fursey kneeling either side of the church’s patron saint, St Michael the Archangel.
On the south wall of the nave is a memorial stone which tells us of bereavement and adoption. It commemorates Robert Chase (died 15th June 1842) and his wife Elizabeth died 18th August 1858) who, on the death of their daughter, adopted her son, John Simonds. It was John who erected the memorial stone, but we are not told why it was that his grandparents had to adopt him, nor the reasons for the absence of his father.
St Michael has the distinction of being one of the country’s Doubly Thankful villages, the only one in Suffolk, where all the serving men came back from both the First and Second World Wars. Their names are recorded in a frame on the north wall of the nave.
There is much wildlife within the churchyard, and the area is maintained with this aspect of conservation in mind.