St Mary's, Stowmarket
A place for worship on the site of St Peters and St Marys’ dates back to at least 1254 or even to before the Domesday records. Prior to the 16th century there were 2 separate buildings, one called St Mary’s and one was St Peters & St Pauls.
After the Royal Manor of Stowe was split into Abbotts Hall \manor and Thorney, the church of St Peters (and St Pauls) became used by Stowmarket parishioners and St Mary’s chapel was part of the Thorney Manor, becoming in effect the church of Stowupland. In 1316 Thorney Manor was given to the Nuns of Campsey Ash.
In 1445 William Austyn of Thorney bequeathed 3s 4d in his will to the work of a new tower of the Blessed Mary of Stowe
In 1453 John Wetherad bequeathed 10s to the tower of {the church of St Mary
In 1480 John Clement bequeathed 3s 4d to ennoble the church of St Mary
In 1491 John Key bequeathed 10 marks to the making of a new candlebeam
Extracts supplied by Neil Langridge 2024, from Building the Late Medieval Suffolk Parish Church by Simon Cotton (2019).
1478 ‘Robert Ferrar was Perpetual Vicar of the parish church of Blessed mary of Stowmarket’.
From the Norwich Consistory deposits Neil Langridge found that in the 1550’s several tythe payers made statements about outstanding tythe payments that they had withheld. The reason given was that as St Mary’s had been ‘plucked down’ (it was demolished in 1546) they hadn’t paid tithe to Vicar John Thorpe as he wasn’t the vicar of St Mary parish as the church no longer existed and he wouldn’t be entitled to tithe for that parish .
Ena noted that ‘the livings were united with one church under the Rev Peagrim and were granted to the Abbots of St Osyth’.
