It is chiefly known for its relatively large array of surviving medieval stained glass, described by a leading expert at the Victoria and Albert Museum as a ‘very special and extremely rare collection’.

[3] The church features in many episodes of Michael Wood's BBC television history series Great British Story, filmed during 2011.

It was originally endowed by the Saxon Earl Alric, who bequeathed the patronage of the church, along with his manor at Melford Hall and about 261 acres of land, to the successive Abbots of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmund's.

The principal benefactor who financed the reconstruction was wealthy local wool merchant John Clopton, who resided at neighbouring Kentwell Hall.

Clopton was a supporter of the Lancastrian cause during the Wars of the Roses and in 1462 was imprisoned in the Tower of London with John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford and a number of others, charged with corresponding treasonably with Margaret of Anjou.

[6] It was replaced with a brick-built structure in the 18th century and subsequently remodelled between 1898 and 1903 to its present-day appearance, designed by George Frederick Bodley (Founder of Watts & Co. ) in the Victorian Gothic Revival style.

These include the image of Elizabeth de Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk, said to have provided the inspiration for John Tenniel's illustration of the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

On the north side is the alabaster and marble tomb of Sir William Cordell who was the first Patron of the Church after the dissolution of the Abbey of Bury St Edmund's in 1539.

[9] The panel, which may be part of an altar piece destroyed during the Reformation, includes a midwife arranging Mary's pillows and two cows looking from under her bed.

Around the cornice, John Lydgate's poem "Testament" is presented in the form of a scroll along the roof, while his "Lamentation of our Lady Maria" is along the west wall.

In an unusual layout, it has a central sanctuary surrounded by a pillared ambulatory, reflecting its original intended use as a chantry chapel with John Clopton's tomb in its centre.

It contains the tombs of several members of the Martyn family, who were prominent local wool merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries, and who also acted as benefactors of the church.

The church contains eight medieval windows, including a rare Pieta image of the Virgin Mary, believed to be only one of three of its kind in England.

[21] Most of the surviving windows feature what Pevsner called ‘a unique collection of kneeling donors’ – leading figures from public life in the 15th century, including Elizabeth Talbot, Duchess of Norfolk, two lord mayors of London, three royal justices, two knights of the garter and various members of the Clopton family of Kentwell Hall, who were the driving force behind the construction of the church.

Until its dissolution in 1539, the patron was the incumbent Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds; after this date, the patronage was held by a prominent local person, transferring either by bequest or by sale.