Lychgate to the Church of St Mary and St Peter, Church Lane, Kelsale-cum-Carlton, Suffolk, by Edward S. Prior (1852-1932). 1889-90. Grade II* listed by Historic England, this was designed for the incumbent at that time, Rev. George Irving Davies. It is described in the listing text as "[t]imber framed on a stone and flint plinth," with a tiled roof and "uprights each side of the entrance [with] buttresses carved in the manner of medieval crown posts." The arched tie beam has a text carved on it: "Come unto me ye weary and I will give you rest," shortened from Matthew XI, 28. What really makes it distinctive is the way the roof sweeps down from a pointed niche which was apparently intended to contain a memorial statue of Davies's wife (see Valinsky 100). Rather strangely, Nikolaus Pevsner failed to mention the lychgate in his account of the church, though he notes the less immediately striking 1897 lychgate of St Michael's, Brantham, also in Suffolk (further south, on the other side of Ipswich), as being "very typical of his capricious style" (101).
Photograph by Robert Edwards, from the Geograph website, reproduced under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed. Text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Bibliography
The lych gate to Kelsale parish church. Geograph. Web. 12 September 2026.
"Lych Gate to Church of St Mary and St Peter." Historic England. Web. 12 September 2026.
Pevsner, Nikolaus. Suffolk. The Buildings of England series. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.
Valinsky, David. The Architecture and Writings of E. S. Prior: Challenging the Arts and Crafts. London: Lund Humphries, 2026. [Review]
Created 12 September 2026