[2] It is one of the largest in East Anglia,[3] and is included by Simon Jenkins in his 2009 book England's Thousand Best Churches, where he awards it three stars.

[8] The church possesses a late 15th-century brass lectern in the form of an eagle with three dogs as feet rather than lions; this may have served as a collection-box, money posted at the beak exiting at the tail.

The motto above the sundial over the south porch reads: 'Go about your business', not a mercantile admonition but a peremptory version of St Paul's advice: "For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies".

[10] Around the doorway may be seen carved ten faces of the Green Man, a somewhat pagan image to be seen on a church, but widely used across Christian Europe.

'Basher' Dowsing, a fanatical anti-Romanist, was appointed as 'Parliamentary Visitor for the East Anglian counties for demolishing the superstitious pictures and ornaments of churches'.

As for Clare, he wrote: "We brake down 1000 pictures superstitious: I brake down 200; 3 of God the Father, and 3 of Christ, and of the Holy Lamb, and 3 of the Holy Ghost like a Dove with Wings; and the Twelve Apostles were carved in wood, on top of the Roof, which we gave order to take down; and 20 Cherubim to be taken down; and the Sun and the Moon in the East window, by the King's Arms to be taken down".

Bullet holes in the roof suggest one inaccurate method, while the rest was done with arrows, stones, poles, and whitewash.

It is part of the Stour Valley Benefice, along with the parishes of: In the eighteenth century an organ stood at the west end of the church, but this was moved to the current position in 1864.

A new organ was obtained in 1888, originally built in 1847 by Gray and Davison for St John the Evangelist's Church, Regent's Park, London.