The Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul at Lavenham is one of the last great Suffolk wool churches to be built before the Reformation. This outstanding example of late medieval architecture was begun around 1486 and finished around 1525, just before the religious upheaval of the Reformation changed the course of ecclesiastical and social history. Like other great Suffolk churches of the period, Lavenham was built by local merchants who made their fortunes in the woollen cloth industry. The major benefactors of Lavenham's church were John de Vere, the 13th Earl of Oxford and lord of Lavenham manor, and three generations of local merchants named Thomas Spring (generally known as Thomas Spring I, II and III).

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