Holy Trinity with St Catherine
Long Melford, Suffolk
Setting and position play a crucial part in the impact of the building and Long Melford's Holy Trinity is perhaps the finest example of this.
Borley’s delightful Grade I listed hilltop church stands approximately in the center of the small parish of Borley, with the hamlet of Borley Green to the west and the River Stour forming, not only its eastern boundary, but also the county boundary between Essex and Suffolk. The well kept graveyard is noted for its 15 topiarised yew trees. The ‘long-and-short’ quoins (corner-stones) in the southwest corner of the nave indicate Saxon origins and it is likely that the south wall (and maybe also the north) dates from this time, indicating that people have worshipped on this ‘high and holy’ spot for at least 900 years.
The interior of the church is dominated by the canopied Waldegrave monument, the ceiling of which features beautiful craftsmanship of the 1600s and retains much of its painted decoration. The church's High Altar is the original mensa (top slab) of the mediaeval stone alter which had been dismantled by Law in the 1540s and was discovered buried in the floor of the nave in 1947, and was reinstated.