Monument record LXD 032 - Church of All Saints (Med)

All Saints Church. Status: vicarage. Structure: fine flint panelled tower, stone faced with pinnacles, nave, chancel, vestry and S porch; diocese of St Edmundbury and Ipswich, deanery Hoxne. Date: Listed in Domesday as church plus 43 acres & half plough. Chancel & vestry C19, nave decorated, rest perpendicular (S1-S3).
Cautley states `The close resemblance between the flintwork and panelling of the tower here and that at Eye, and the fact that Eye Priory had the appropriation of Laxfield, make it probable that the same master-mason built both, circa 1480'.
Note: Laxfield Church Tithes record payments of half-silver (an Anglo-Saxon tax) on Shrove Tuesdays, to the Minster Church up until 1840. This may suggest Laxfield was a a Minster Church (needs research). Also note: Laxfield presumably seat of Edric of Laxfield (one of the richest in East Anglia) in 1066.
Further details in (S1)(S2).

2012: Two small evaluation test-pits were excavated within the body of the tower of All Saints Church, Laxfield on the line of proposed new service trenches. Immediately below the existing concrete floor in Trench 1 the remains of an earlier brick floor was uncovered. The bricks were heavily sooted on their upper surface and were interpreted as representing a 19th or early 20th century structure that would have formed the stable base for a stove. Two other similar bases survive in the nave. Below the brick floor in Trench one and immediately below the concrete in Trench 2 a layer of disaggregated lime mortar and flints were recorded. No medieval floor levels were encountered. Judging by the base level of the extant limestone mouldings, particularly in the area of Trench 1, medieval floor levels would have been similar to those of today and, on that basis, are likely to have been replaced rather than built over (S4). Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2012 (S5).
Also Sax coins & finger ring.

2016: Following the excavation of two small test-pits within the body of the tower of All Saints Church, Laxfield, monitoring of the groundworks in advance of constructing toilet
facilities was carried out. The existing concrete floor was removed and the ground level reduced by between 0.45m at the east end and 0.65m at the west end. A brick floor, originally interpreted as the base for a stove, was reported to have been present throughout the majority of the tower rather than in one discrete area, but had been removed by contractors prior to the first monitoring visit by an archaeologist. A spread of dark, charcoal grey sand was present below the floor bricks up against the southern tower wall.
Below the brick, the layer of disaggregated lime mortar and flints recorded in the test pits was seen to be present throughout the tower. This sealed boulder clay which
appeared to be disturbed where it was seen directly below the mortar layer but was cleaner where the service trench cut through it. No evidence for medieval floor levels was encountered within the body of the tower. Monitoring of the service trench outside of the tower revealed disturbed ground immediately west of the church but nothing more than topsoil over undisturbed boulder clay where it followed the western church boundary. (S6)


Also Sax coins & finger ring.