Its parish was a small farming community which saw a great increase in population with the coming of the railway to this part of Ipswich.

[6] In 970, King Edgar endowed St. Ethelreda (i.e. the Prior and Convent of Ely) with lands in the parish and moiety of jurisdiction beyond the bridge (3 carnicates, peopled by 9 villans, 5 bordars rising to 15, 1 serf, several plough teams).

There is a tradition which says that churches in this area of Suffolk go by the name of St Mary if they were used by pilgrims on their way to the great shrine at Walsingham, Norfolk.

In medieval times, Ipswich had its own shrine of Mary, still marked today by the plaque for the Black Virgin on Lady Lane.

The Parliamentary visitor, William Dowsing, records the desecration of "Crosses in Wood, and 2 Cherubim painted; and one Inscription in Brass with `ora pro nobis'" on his visit 29–30 January 1643.

Cuthbert Douthwaite, wrote "This parish to a large extent consists chiefly of farmhouses, and is one of the suburbs of Ipswich, containing 60 families.

A sketch made in 1839, by Davy, shows the parish church to be a small building with a low western tower and elaborate brick two-storeyed south porch.It had a plaster-covered nave and chancel continuous under a medieval single hammer-beam roof.

In 1824 the ceiling was painted sky-blue and the backboard of the pulpit was lined with blue velvet bordered with broad gold lace.

Another commentator notes that "the building was chiefly remarkable for its ugliness and for the circumstance that it was the last church in the town, if not in the county, in which instrumental music was still supplied by one or two dashing fiddlers, a wheezy trombone, and a squalling clarinet".

In 1864, nearly twenty years after the population explosion began (when the railway came), the old church was restored, and a small north transept added.

The high pews removed from the nave ("neat benches substituted"), the plaster knocked off the walls, and the hammer beams were adorned with carved angels.

1870–2, the architect William Butterfield designed a new nave, chancel and south porch, more than doubling the size of the original church, which was left as the north aisle and Lady Chapel.

Traditional East Anglian flint and the Perpendicular style of architecture were used, as commonly found in the medieval churches locally.The choir stalls were of Riga wainscot oak, poppy heads richly carved.

In his sermon, the Venerable Archdeacon Emery BC Canon of Ely preached on Romans 12:4-5, and commented that a new organ was needed.

Formerly merely striped with red tile, the stone panels were now filled with full-length figures in oil painting on a gold background in the style of the early Italian school.

His voice was not strong, and his delivery hurried, but he was admired for the originality and freshness of his thoughts, and his ability to "hit out right and left at his congregation".

At one meeting, they discussed how to get the congregation to sit down promptly at the beginning of the service, comparing their practice against that of St. Peter's, where "directly the bell stopped tolling all vacant seats were immediately filled up".

The Parish church was badly in need of costly maintenance, and was hemmed in by very old and almost derelict buildings; the former Stoke School and one time Workhouse.

Canon Bob managed to persuade a contractor to demolish the old buildings by the church for nothing except the value of those bricks and timbers not used to fill in the vast cellars.

With support from the Ganzoni family, Canon Bob got the developers to allocate a site to Stoke Church for community use.

Canon Bob organised endless fund raising efforts; not only fetes and bazaars, but a vegetable stall outside the church hall, and the Rector's Shop in Wherstead Road, which sold virtually anything anyone could lay hands on.

Canon Bob died in October 1995, and many were those who came to St. Mary Stoke to his funeral, in grateful memory of his passion for his Lord and his leadership from the front during those years.

Arnold Stiff donated a painted plaque, which can be seen on the north wall, to commemorate St Mary at Stoke's long association with the people of the railway.

St Mary Stoke [13] has the opportunity to focus on the needs of the folk who live on the ridge west of the river.