Westley, Suffolk - St Mary

On paper an 1835 concrete church should be appalling but actually St Mary, locked, no keyholder, is a triumph of style over substance. Having checked with Suffolk Churches I didn't miss much inside but the exterior more than made up for it being LNK. I think Pevsner is unduly harsh.

ST MARY. 1835 by W. Ranger. Roman cement, in the lancet style, with a SW tower and a very crude and ignorant spire. - PLATE. Paten 1564; Flagon 1703.

WESTLEY. It has seen the Romans come and go, and the museum at Bury St Edmunds has a Roman burial urn broken here by an English plough. One of its leafy lanes runs past charming thatched cottages to an orchard and a field where the ruined walls of a church stand, forlorn but hallowed by centuries of prayer. Not far away is a concrete church a little over a century old, with one relic of the mother church - a piece of oak from the ancient chancel screen, carved with a curious face.

Flickr.