To the west of the church is the Deanery Tower one of the finest examples of Tudor brickwork with diaper patterning in dark brick typical of the period. Attached is the Victorian Deanery House.

The Tower was built as a status symbol in 1495 by Archdeacon William Pykenham while Rector of Hadleigh, as a gatehouse for a projected mansion nearer the river but he died before this could be done.The tower is just over 52 ft. to the top of the turrets and approximately 31 ft. wide.The battlements and machicolation over the oriel window are purely ornamental, strange military precautions for a clergyman's house. In a corner turret of the first floor is a small vaulted oratory, from which there is access to a secret chamber above.

Pykeham died on 20 April 1497. His will is dated 14 days earlier. All his books and a 'great bassyn of sylver, parcel gilt' he bequeathed to the College of Stoke-by-Clare, where he is buried. But he left his lands, at Hadleigh, Whatfield, Aldham, Naughton, Elmsett and Semer, to endow almshouses in George Street.

The foundation must have been in his mind for a long time, for, in 1491, the actual site of the almshouses was conveyed to Pykeham and 15 others jointly. The same year, he himself purchased the two adjoining tenements in Helstrete from Henry and Robert Monnyng.

The Oxford Movement was launched here in 1833, which was the reassertion of Catholic teaching within the Church of England.