The 'Westminster Abbey' of Suffolk?

From Allan Barton - The Antiquary

Hawstead is a village in the hundred of Thingoe, some 3 miles S of the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The church stands on a by-road at the NW end of the village, alongside Church Farm, and Hawstead Hall is half a mile from the church, to the NE. All Saints' is a big church consisting of a broad aisleless nave with a S porch, a lower chancel with a N vestry and a W tower. The nave and tower are of knapped flints with stone dressings; the E gable of the nave was rebuilt in brick. The chancel is of flint and septaria and the vestry of flint with brick repairs. The nave is substantially of the 15th-16thc., and has Perpendicular windows and buttresses decorated with flushwork panels, but the N and S doorways are 12th century work, clearly reset. Inside is a fine 16th-century hammerbeam angel roof, unfortunately mutilated during the civil war of the 17th century. and over-restored in 1858. The S porch is from the 15th century. The chancel has a blocked round-headed window towards the W end of the S wall, indicating 12th-century fabric. It was re-modelled and probably lengthened in the early 13th century. (plain N and S lancets), and other windows date from all periods from c. 1300 to the 15th century. The chancel arch was heavily restored in the 19th century. The tower is of one campaign, completed c. 1500. It has a polygonal S stair, diagonal W buttresses with flushwork panels, and more intricate flushwork on the battlemented parapet. Above the W doorway is a frieze bearing the arms of Sir Robert Drury and his family's alliances by marriage. Hawstead church is mainly celebrated for its monuments: a late-13th-century knight effigy reputed to be Sir Eustace fitzEustace; tombs of the Drury family dating from the 16th century and early 17th century, and the overblown Italianate tomb of Sir Thomas Cullum (d.1664).

Romanesque sculpture is found on the two nave doorways, and there is a plain font, probably 12th century.

History

In 1086, there were 28 free men in Hawstead, holding 4 carucates of land. The most important of them were Odo, who held 1 carucate, two clerics called Albold and Peter, who held 2 carucates between them, and Agenet, who held 20 acres. There was also a church with 30 acres of free land. The soke and the commendation of this entire holding belonged to St Edmundsbury Abbey. A small parcel of 15 acres, held by 2 free men of Wihtgar before the Conquest, was held by Richard fitzGilbert in 1086.

In the 12th century, records of Bury St Edmunds Abbey distinguish two holdings in Hawstead; one was held first by Ralph de Halstede from the abbot and (by Abbot Sampson's time) by his son Robert. The other was held by Thomas Noel and his heirs. The first principal lords of the manor were the fitzEustace family, who apparently gained their title by the marriage of Thomas fitzEustace to Joan, daughter of Thomas Noel, around the year 1220. The fitzEustace family held the manor until it was sold by John fitzEustace c.1354 to Sir William de Middleton, who in turn sold it to Sir William de Clopton, c.1359. Sir William Clopton sold it to Sir Robert Drury in 1504. Sir Robert became Speaker of the House of Commons and was responsible for much of the building of Hawstead church. He died in 1536. The estate remained in the Drury family until 1656, when it was sold to Thomas Cullum.

A church has stood on this site since at least 1086, and possibly a Saxon church before that. The south porch is Norman, exhibiting the dog-tooth pattern from this period. The piscina and the font are 13th century and have remains of iron fastenings which were apparently used to lock it against the use of holy water for witchcraft. The chancel dates from around 1300. The tower was completed in 1510. The pulpit and lectern date from around 1520. In 1780, the thatched roof was replaced by slates and tiles.