Monument record BSM 013 - Chapel of St Stephen; Chapel Barn

Chapel of St Stephen, dedicated early C13. Building subseqently used as cottages and then as a barn. Exterior measurements 53ft 6in x 22ft, walls 15ft high, thatched roof. Lancet windows, piscina on S side of chancel, consecration cross on an inside wall (S1). Dedicated in 1218. Lancet windows and 3 stepped lancets at the E end, shafted inside. Timber-framed W attachment. Thatched roof. Inside 3 monuments of the de Vere family moved from Colne Priory, Earls Colne, Essex (S2). Stone rubble walls with heavy buttresses on S & E sides. On N side gabled 2-storey entrance bay with exposed timber-framing and brick nogging on first storey (S3). Chapel of St Stephen dedicated c.1213-1224 by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury at the request of Gilbert de Tany, knight, at whose house or curia the chapel was situated (S4). For a discussion of the de Vere monuments now in the Chapel see (S5; also see R Innes-Smith, 'The Chapel Barn of St Stephen, Bures and the de Vere monuments', E. Anglian Life, 8, July 1966).
Said (completely unsubstantiated) to mark the traditional site of the coronation of St Edmund in AD856 (eg HR Barker, West Suffolk Illustrated, 1907, 40).

Grade I listed building: Originally a chapel said to have been erected by Abbot Sampson of Bury in the late C12 or early C13, on the site of the King Church where Edmund was crowned King of the Angles in 855. A stone rubble building with heavy buttresses on the south and east sides. There are 3 tall lancet windows in the east end and smaller lancets in the north and south walls. On the north side there is a gabled 2 storey entrance bay with exposed timber-framing and brick nogging on the 1st storey. The interior has 3 fine tombs of the De Vere family removed from Colne Priory, Earls Colne, Essex. One is to Robert de Vere, 5th Earl of Oxford (d 1296) has ogee arched niches on the sides. Another to Thomas de Vere, 8th Earl of Oxford (d 1371) also has ogee arched niches on the sides, and the third to Richard de Vere (d 1417) and his wife Alice is of alabaster. All the tombs have recumbent figures (S6).

2015 Eavesdropper Newsletter: St Stephen's Chapel, grade I listed 13th century building is a rare survival of a medieval private manorial chapel. It is alleged to have been built by Abbot Samson of Bury Abbey on the spot where King Edmunds was crowned in AD 856, but in fact it was built by a local manorial lord, Sir Gilbert de Tanny and didicated between 1213 and 1221 at his request by Archbishop Stephen Landgton. 1383 sold to Sir Richard Waldegrave. The chapel was still in use in the early 16th century. 1837 Tithe map shows the chapel was just an isolated barn, but by 1904 it had developed into Chapel Farm and the chapel formed part of the southern arm of a U-shaped set of farm buildings that faced eastward towards a new farmhouse.. 1930s restored to a chapel by Isabel Baynew Badcock. The east windo has stained glass signed with a mark, dated 1934 with the letter W above a stag's head - the signature of the London stained-glass designer Horace Wilkinson. Tombs of the de Veres, earls of Oxford moved to St Stephen's Chapel in 1935 (S7).