(1) In its original condition c. 1500: In his History of Long Melford (1873) Sir William Parker writes: 'Not only the walls and roofs were bright with paint and gilding, and the great carved reredos representing the Crucifixion was resplendent with gold and colours; the high altar glittering with a profusion of plate, jewels, embroidery and precious hangings; when also, before the great rood, the several minor altars, and the many images of the saints, there hung brilliant costly draperies; and the officiating priests shone in rich vestments of silk, satin, velvet and cloth of gold. . . . We may well imagine how grand must have been the effect, and how dazzling the brilliancy of colour lighting up this noble church when in the sunshine, combined with the gorgeous reflected hues of the stained glass with which its seventy-two windows were filled.' From an artistic point of view Sir William can only lament that within a century of the church being built so much of this had been destroyed by the Reformation, though he has to admit that a great deal of this magnificence went with a faith with which we as Anglicans can hardly agree, and that even from a purely aesthetic point of view the church was by modern English standards somewhat gaudy. But it certainly reflected a society which believed that nothing but the best is good enough for Cod, and which gave its best to God rather than to itself.