Saint Mary at Stoke is a

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed Anglican church in the Old Stoke area of Ipswich. on the junction of Stoke Street and Belstead Road in Ipswich, Suffolk. The church stands in a prominent position near the foot of a ridge, just south west of Stoke Bridge and the town centre. Its parish was a small farming community which saw a great increase in population with the coming of the railway to this part of Ipswich. It was once governed by Ely, a fact lightly made much of by a politician of Stoke. In 1995 its parish was subsumed into th
South West Ipswich Team Ministry
in the

Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich is a Church of England diocese based in Ipswich, covering Suffolk (excluding Lowestoft). The cathedral is St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and the bishop is the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It is part ...

. The building is made up of a small medieval church and a large Victorian extension designed by

William Butterfield William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy. Biography William Butterfield was born in Lon ...

in 1872. A church has existed on this site since the 10th Century. It is probably one of the St Marys mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

. The original nave (now the north aisle) has a medieval single hammer beam roof, with moulded wall plates, angels with shields at the ends of the hammer beams, and figures underneath.Ipswich Churches Ancient & Modern, Roy Tricker, 1982, The angels are Victorian replacements for those destroyed by iconoclasts. The church was visited by

William Dowsing William Dowsing (1596–1668), also known as "Smasher Dowsing", was an English puritan, and was a particularly notable iconoclast at the time of the English Civil War.G. Goodwin, 'Dowsing, William (?1596-?1679), iconoclast', ''Dictionary of Natio ...

. There is a medieval

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman Ca ...

Richard Hall Gower Captain Richard Hall Gower (1768–1833) was an English mariner, empirical philosopher, nautical inventor, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. Mariner Richard was the youngest son of Rev. Foote Gower, physician and antiquarian, and Elizabeth, a s ...

is buried in a vault of the church.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mary Stoke Church of England church buildings in Ipswich Grade I listed churches in Ipswich William Butterfield buildings