Kentford, Suffolk

St Mary, locked, keyholder listed was my 17th visit on the second hottest day of the year and I was hot and sweaty and feeling grumpy at finding it locked. I misread the keyholder notice, I'd left my reading glasses in the car, as "Kentford PO during opening hours" and since I didn't have a clue where the post office is situated I moved on to Newmarket cemetery. It was only when I was processing the externals that I realised the notice actually reads PH and that the keys are held at the pub just up the road! No matter, apart from the wallpaintings it holds little of import.

ST MARY. All Dec, except for the brick top of the tower. Much renewed. The most individual motif is the rose window of the tower, with a five-petalled rose in a circle. Dec also the chancel doorway and the E window (reticulated tracery). - BOX PEWS. - WALL PAINTINGS. Late C14, not easily seen. A badlydamaged St Christopher, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Works of Mercy (cf. Hoxne for both), and, better preserved and quite impressive with its big figures, the Legend of the three Quick and the three Dead. - PLATE. Cup 1662.

KENTFORD. Finely placed on a hill is its 14th century church, with a tiny 15th century porch and a lovely rose window through which the light would be falling when the news came from Bannockburn. There is an old chest, and traces of 500-year-old wall-paintings with three figures still plain to see.

Flickr.