On the Brink of Collapse

After more than 600 years crowning Sudbury’s Market Hill, the medieval church of St Peter’s was in great danger and looking friendless. In 1958 St Peter’s was the subject of a “Brief Report upon the structural defects requiring the most urgent attention”. Timber had “split alarmingly” and “cavities extend right through the thickness of the wall”. Arches were “opening up”. The tower, was in danger of falling down.

Strangely the town did not seem to rush to the defence of the building.

Ten years later, an even more dramatic report warned of imminent collapse of the upper part of the tower. Immediate action was required. The local press was stung into action and sought opinions from 325 townsfolk. An unbelievable 112 inhabitants, mostly living in the town, wanted the church to be demolished.
The building had some friends. 188 folk, mostly from the surrounding area, thought it should be kept. 25 respondents dithered.

There were plans for demolition and replacement by a small garden, underground public toilets, a modern replacement building, a community hall, car parking and extending the market. At a public meeting, one member of the Town Council advocated taking off the roof and leaving it to become a “noble ruin” in which people could eat their sandwiches. The most fascinating suggestion was to demolish the building and replace it with an exact fibreglass reproduction. Facing objections that people would not be able to go inside, the proponent added “hardly anyone enters the present church anyway.” He had a point.

Money was raised in the town, work was undertaken, the tower was reinforced with huge concrete ring beams. Perhaps a brighter future beckoned…

Just three years later, the decision was made to close the church for worship and it was locked up and mothballed. There followed further advice on demolition.

From Devastation to the Festival of Sudbury

Roger Green could not believe the devastation and neglect when he first visited the church. Nothing worked and it was all covered in dust and cobwebs, standing unloved and friendless. He was invited to meet a town councillor, Tony Moore. His ambition was to revive the building. Tony inspired Roger and togegther they hatched plans for a Festival of Sudbury to “prove the use of the building for the benefit of the town.”

The Festival made a profit but, much more significant, the attitude in the town towards the building had changed. People from all walks of life had attended events and enjoyed the experience. They wanted more. Many of them looked at the building with new eyes.

The Friends are Formed

Out of the success of the festival was born a registered charity, the “Friends of St Peter Sudbury”, in readiness for the inevitable declaration of redundancy of the building which came towards the end of 1976 with the Friends being appointed as agents for the Redundant Churches Fund to run the building locally.

Tony Moore was the first chairman and later on Roger Green became the fourth chairman, enjoying office for 27 years. The Friends had already started opening the building to the public regularly and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning…

The Friends’ first major challenge was to take the bells (one is 500 years old) to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry for remedial work, build a new bell frame in the tower and enable the wonderful voices of those bells to ring out again over the town. We also raised sufficient funds to cast two new bells to make a ring of ten, in October 1979.

The townsfolk soon realised the benefits of using Sudbury’s central building
and it became popular for myriad different activities. Many of those who used the building or supported our aims joined the Friends group. A Rector of the mid 19th century had controversially sold off the pews and so we had a wonderful open space that was adaptable to so many uses.

Over the next forty years the Friends raised funds to provide new chairs; new staging (twice); new electrics throughout the building; new lighting (twice); new heating (twice); a new kitchen (three times); new tables (twice); and a sound system, as well as spending £350,000 on the organ and gently renovating parts of the building.

St Peter’s Reborn

Under the care of the Friends, St Peter’s hosted concerts of so many kinds; fairs and markets; town and civic events; receptions, celebrations, school holiday clubs, flower festivals, Christmas tree festivals, fireworks off the tower, cookery demonstrations, fashion shows, horticultural shows, historical exhibitions, art exhibitions, model railway exhibitions, medieval banquets, medieval fairs, Christmas card shops, farmers’ markets and so much else, even a group juggling with flaming torches. For years the Churches Together in Sudbury ran a drop-in centre on Thursdays and that has helped so many folk.

In his final years as chairman of the Friends, Roger Green calculated that the church saw over 60,000 visitors a year. No wonder all the equipment wore out.

We believe that the Friends did indeed manage to “prove the use… for the benefit of the town” and enabled St Peter’s to find a way back into the hearts and minds of the townsfolk whose lives it had enriched for hundreds of years.

The Renovation

For all its great benefits of capacity, beauty and location, one thing that this fine
building never had, up until 2023, was toilets, and that hindered St Peter’s from reaching its full potential as a venue. And so the Friends and the Churches Conservation Trust worked together to raise funds for a major renovation programme to make good the damage of centuries externally and to construct yet another new kitchen, toilets under a new gallery (there have been several galleries in the church over the years), as well as providing better facilities for interpretation and use of the building.

St Peter’s closed in September 2021, for fifteen or so months which stretched to twenty five months in order for all the works to take place. The Churches Conservation Trust initially appointed the Bridge Project Sudbury to manage St Peter’s but took this management in-house while retaining the staff, when the Bridge Porject failed. St Peter’s, is now grandly called Sudbury Arts Centre and since then the Friends of St Peter’s have embarked on a new chapter in their relationship with this wonderful building.

Enormous thanks are due to all the Friends and volunteers, to all the hirers, supporters and partners, local councils, the Churches Conservation Trust, and the people of Sudbury past, present and future, without whom St Peter’s would still be but a noble ruin.