diff --git a/pageserver/src/tenant.rs b/pageserver/src/tenant.rs
index 04fe9db76a..dffbd3c9b4 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/tenant.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/tenant.rs
@@ -2878,7 +2878,7 @@ impl Tenant {
     /// - after initialization complete, remove the temp dir.
     ///
     /// The caller is responsible for activating the returned timeline.
-    async fn bootstrap_timeline(
+    pub async fn bootstrap_timeline(
         &self,
         timeline_id: TimelineId,
         pg_version: u32,
diff --git a/pageserver/src/walingest.rs b/pageserver/src/walingest.rs
index 23367928d3..62dba0fc08 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/walingest.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/walingest.rs
@@ -2079,4 +2079,66 @@ mod tests {
 
         Ok(())
     }
+
+    /// Replay a wal segment file taken directly from safekeepers.
+    ///
+    /// This test is useful for benchmarking since it allows us to profile only
+    /// the walingest code in a single-threaded executor, and iterate more quickly
+    /// without waiting for unrelated steps.
+    #[tokio::test]
+    async fn test_ingest_real_wal() -> anyhow::Result<()> {
+        use crate::tenant::harness::*;
+        use postgres_ffi::waldecoder::WalStreamDecoder;
+        use postgres_ffi::WAL_SEGMENT_SIZE;
+
+        // Bootstrap a real timeline. We can't use create_test_timeline because
+        // it doesn't create a real checkpoint, and Walingest::new tries to parse
+        // the garbage data.
+        let pg_version = 15;
+        let (tenant, ctx) = TenantHarness::create("test_basic")?.load().await;
+        let tline = tenant
+            .bootstrap_timeline(TIMELINE_ID, pg_version, &ctx)
+            .await?;
+
+        // Get test data. Steps to reconstruct it, if needed:
+        // 1. Run the pgbench python test
+        // 2. Take the first wal segment file from safekeeper
+        // 3. Grep sk logs for "restart decoder" to get startpoint
+        // 4. Run just the decoder from this test to get the endpoint.
+        //    It's the last LSN the decoder will output.
+        let path = "test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench";
+        let startpoint = Lsn::from_hex("14AEC08").unwrap();
+        let endpoint = Lsn::from_hex("1FFFF98").unwrap();
+
+        // We fully read this into memory before decoding to get a
+        // more accurate perf profile of the decoder.
+        let bytes = std::fs::read(path)?;
+
+        // TODO start a profiler too
+        let started_at = std::time::Instant::now();
+
+        // Initialize walingest
+        let xlogoff: usize = startpoint.segment_offset(WAL_SEGMENT_SIZE);
+        let mut decoder = WalStreamDecoder::new(startpoint, pg_version);
+        let mut walingest = WalIngest::new(tline.as_ref(), startpoint, &ctx).await?;
+        let mut modification = tline.begin_modification(endpoint);
+        let mut decoded = DecodedWALRecord::default();
+        println!("decoding {} bytes", bytes.len() - xlogoff);
+
+        // Decode and ingest wal. We process the wal in chunks because
+        // that's what happens when we get bytes from safekeepers.
+        for chunk in bytes[xlogoff..].chunks(50) {
+            decoder.feed_bytes(chunk);
+            while let Some((lsn, recdata)) = decoder.poll_decode()? {
+                walingest
+                    .ingest_record(recdata, lsn, &mut modification, &mut decoded, &ctx)
+                    .await?;
+            }
+        }
+
+        let duration = started_at.elapsed();
+        println!("done in {:?}", duration);
+
+        Ok(())
+    }
 }
diff --git a/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench b/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..71190be5f3
Binary files /dev/null and b/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench differ