Church of St Michael the Archangel, Framlingham

St Michael the Archangel's Church is the magnificent parish church of Framlingham, a historic market town in Suffolk famous for its great medieval castle. A noble Perpendicular Gothic church of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, it is celebrated above all as the burial place of the Howard family, the Dukes of Norfolk, whose superb Tudor tombs make it one of the most important churches in England for monumental sculpture. Listed at Grade I, it also possesses one of the rarest organs in the country, and stands as a treasure-house of English history.

A church has stood here since at least the twelfth century — the carved capitals of the chancel arch survive from that date — but the majority of the present building was raised in the Perpendicular style between about 1350 and 1555. Its crowning glory is the roof, dating from around 1521, which is decorated with intricate fan tracery that conceals the hammer beams above. Framlingham was a great aristocratic seat: the castle and estate, once held by the Norman Bigods, passed through royal hands to Thomas of Brotherton, a son of King Edward I, and eventually became one of the principal seats of the Dukes of Norfolk, before being bequeathed in the seventeenth century to Pembroke College, Cambridge, which remains lord of the manor to this day.

The church's greatest treasures are the Howard family tombs, most of them brought here after the dissolution of Thetford Priory, the family's original burial place. Among them is the ornate tomb of Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, the illegitimate son of King Henry VIII by his mistress Elizabeth Blount. Promoted to high honours as his father's only surviving son, FitzRoy was married, while still a boy, to Mary Howard, daughter of the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, but died of consumption at the age of seventeen in 1536. His tomb is carved with a remarkable series of Old Testament scenes — the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, and the deeds of Abraham and Moses — and even includes the carved outline of the small private door by which the noblemen of the castle once entered the church.

Greater still is the tomb of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, which stands just south of the high altar and has been said to bear comparison with anything in northern Europe. Carved with figures of the Twelve Apostles and the earliest Christian saints, it represents the last great display of religious imagery in England before the full force of the Reformation made such things impossible. Commissioned not by the Crown but on behalf of the greatest nobleman in the land, it is part French and part English in design, and is thought to contain, besides the Duke himself, the bodies of his father and grandfather — the 2nd Duke, victor of the Battle of Flodden, and the 1st Duke, who fell fighting for Richard III at Bosworth. Nearby is the tomb of the wives of the 4th Duke of Norfolk, who was himself executed at the Tower of London for plotting to marry Mary, Queen of Scots; when the vault was opened in 1842 it was found nearly empty, and tradition holds that the townspeople hid their valuables within it during the Jacobite rising of 1745.

The church also holds the tomb of one of the great figures of English literature: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the Tudor poet who, with Sir Thomas Wyatt, introduced the sonnet to English and helped to shape the language of Shakespeare. Executed in disgrace in the reign of Henry VIII, his remains were brought to Framlingham by his son, and the fine monument depicting him and his wife was erected in 1614; when it was restored in the 1970s, a new coronet was made for the effigy, replacing one that had been lost.

Among the church's other remarkable possessions is its world-famous organ. Of the few large organs to survive the destruction of the English Civil War, only three are the work of the builder Thomas Thamar, and Framlingham's is one of them — the others being at Gloucester Cathedral and a small Northamptonshire church. Built for Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1674, with painted front pipes and a case that may be older still, it was brought to St Michael's in 1708 when the college acquired a newer instrument, and after careful restoration it remains a treasure of national importance. The composer Mendelssohn is believed to have given music lessons in Framlingham during a visit to a former rector, adding to the organ's illustrious associations. The tower holds a ring of eight bells, the oldest dating from the fifteenth century.

Today St Michael's continues as the living parish church of Framlingham, drawing visitors from around the world to see its Howard tombs and its organ, and it has even featured as a setting in Anthony Horowitz's mystery novel Magpie Murders.

The church stands on Church Street in the centre of Framlingham, in the gently rolling countryside of east Suffolk. The town's spectacular twelfth-century castle, with its curtain wall and towers, stands close by, along with the historic market place, the mere below the castle, the Suffolk coast at Aldeburgh and Southwold, the heritage of "Constable Country", and the wider Suffolk countryside, all within easy reach.

From its medieval origins and its great Perpendicular rebuilding, through the incomparable Tudor tombs of the Dukes of Norfolk, the poet Earl of Surrey and the son of Henry VIII, to its rare Thamar organ and its life today as a parish church, St Michael the Archangel's Church, Framlingham, gathers the history of Tudor England into one building. A Grade I listed church of the first importance, it remains one of the great parish churches of Suffolk and a place of pilgrimage for all who love English history and art.