Coney Weston, Suffolk

I visited St Mary shortly after winter opening times were announced - they're Sats & Suns and over the Christmas holidays for those interested - and the notice said it will re-open on Ash Wednesday, followed by a stentorian announcement that all visitors should sign the visitors book. Luckily the notice went on to note that the key is available during the week from the churchwardens...unfortunately I could find no reference to the said churchwardens contact details.

Having said that this is a marked improvement for a church that seems to have always been historically LNK.

ST MARY. Outside the village. Nave and chancel, both Dec, the nave thatched. The W tower fell a long time ago. A two-bay N chancel chapel has been pulled down. The nave S wall and the S porch have knapped flint walls. In the outside chancel S wall a low tomb recess. Inside there are two cusped niches to the l. of the chancel arch, and two not quite so tall ones to its r. Angle PISCINA in the chancel with angle shaft and a gable starting with vertical pieces. To its l. remains of a remarkably large niche which must have been placed in the angle between E window and piscina. - FONT. Octagonal, Dec. With a number of tracery motifs of the date and also a panel with twelve roses and two with big square leaves. - TILES. Some in the NW corner. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup; Paten 1678.

CONEY WESTON. It has one of the thatched roof churches of the 14th century. It has lost its tower, which fell in and was never set up again; we asked an old man how it happened and it seems he had always believed that the Romans and the Saxons knocked it down! The  oldest thing we found here was a mass dial from the days before clocks, the loveliest thing we found was a graceful corner piscina with a detached pillar and a fine canopy. There are also canopied stone seats for the priests, and niches on each side of the altar with traces of early colourings lingering in them.

Flickr.