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All Saints

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All Saints is built in flint and brick, familiar from domestic buildings in this part of East Anglia. James Fletcher Watson, the architect, used the presence of significant 18th century buildings in the village to justify the style, although it appears to have been the parishioners who finally chose a design that was criticised for being middle-brow during the white heat years of modernism. It has stood the test of time well, although Watson's aim to integrate it into its setting is not obviously fulfilled; rather, it is the open greenness of the churchyard which inoculates its almost New England simplicity from the familiarly complex collection of village buildings around. It would not sit as comfortably among a jumble of gravestones.

All Saints has a homogenity that echoes Wren's City churches. The mock-classical portal, which should overwhelm, doesn't. The bell fleche and clock stage were completed in the 1990s, and the clear glass is set with panels of 17th century Rhineland glass - again, this should appear more curious than it actually does.

Fletcher Watson insisted on a three decker pulpit, which the parish were uncertain about. They gave in when he designed one that could be easily dismantled if necessary; and there it is, still in place today. The woodwork has a pleasing faded appearance, not as antiseptic as some of the Ikea-style furnishings often found in a building of this age. It has to be said that the overall cost, less than £20,000, was very reasonable. Most of it came from the War Damage Reparations Fund.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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Chedgrave is the north side of the town of Loddon, the bit over the river - and it has to be said that the riverside apartments are tremendous. Domestic housing of style and significance is a feature of the Loddon area, thanks to the work here in the 1950s and 1960s by the internationally important architects Herbert Tayler and David Green on befalf of Loddon Rural District Council. Unfortunately, of course, much of their work is now in private hands, and the original features have been replaced by upvc windows and doors. The selling off of council houses was by no means Thatcherism's worst crime, but in this case we have lost the integrity of some super buildings - Loddon even represented Great Britain in international architecture exhibitions at the time.

By the time you get up to the top road, however, the housing is fairly mundane, and here is All Saints, right on the edge of town.

What a strange building this is! For a moment, it is difficult to read. The Norman tower stands to the north of the chancel; this was substantially restored by the Victorians, but the nave to the west of it is certainly Norman, as you can tell by the doorways. The Georgians built a brick north aisle stretching back from the tower. Pevsner, or at least his revising editor gets very confused, and suspects that the tower is in fact a heightened north transept from the 12th century, which is unlikely to say the least. Where he and I both agree, however, is that the 1990s extension westwards of the north aisle is, umm, drastic. As Bill Wilson says, it is like a two-storey house hitting you in the face. I wondered if the adjacent estate was taking it over, infecting it some how, and forcing it to morph into Wimpey or Barratt housing.

All Saints is famous for its continental glass, part of the same collection installed at Thurton and Langley. Dennis King restored it all in the 1960s. I'd have liked to have seen it, but the church was locked, with no keyholder.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints

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All Saints & St Andrew

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Catton new St luke

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Holy Cross

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Holy Trinity

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Holy Trinity

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Loddon w Hales & Heckingham: holy trinity

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Morton-on-the-hill

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Our Lady w St Margaret

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St Margaret sits in a walled churchyard above the narrow lanes of this tiny village. In appearance it is almost entirely 19th century; only the chancel was not refaced in unknapped flint by the Victorians, but these have mellowed with age and only the tower still appears rather stark. The east window predates the Victorians, dating from a restoration in the 1820s - with its narrow interlocking tracery and clear glass panes it is very pleasing.

Coming from the in-yer-face Anglo-catholic spikiness of neighbouring Erpingham, I hoped that I would find something similar at Calthorpe, and I was not disappointed. This is another sacramental interior, but differs from Erpingham in that it is very simple, the altar dressed in plain colours, the stations restrained, the rood simple. I might have thought myself inside a modern Catholic church rather than an Anglican one. The nave altar in particular might have stepped straight out of the Diocese of East Anglia rather than the Diocese of Norwich.

There is deliciously green font, with a towering 20th century font cover, typical of the style in red and green. But the Anglo-catholic tradition at Calthorpe probably predates it. The Rector here for forty years of the 19th century was Samuel Shepheard, who in his later years was received into the Catholic Church along with his daughters. When he died, they built the Catholic chapel of St John of the Cross at Aylsham in his memory; it now forms the sacristy of the modern church there.

If he could come back, he might well find that the Mass and Benedection still celebrated here at Anglican Calthorpe were more traditionalist in character than the post-Vatican II liturgy of the modern Catholic Church, his adopted home.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

Shelfanger All Saints

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St Agnes

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Cawston is a surprisingly large village, both because it is in this area of narrow lanes and remote churches, and also because it it so close to the larger village of Reepham. But St Agnes is not a surprise, because you have seen the tower so often already on the horizon, riding the hedgerows, as you weave between the sprawling fields. A stark, monolithic object, both because of the unfamiliar stone and because the top is without pinnacles or battlements. From many places you can see both this tower and that of Salle; but there is never any confusing them.

The de la Poles had it built, and it reflects the full confidence of the early years of the 15th century. It provides a taste of things to come in the decades ahead. The great west doorway is unfamiliar, sulking solidly, as if the south porch had superceded it, which probably happened.

The wild man and dragon in the spandrels are two of the biggest there are. Characterful gargoyles squat below the parapets; the one on the east side of the south porch appears to be carrying a rugby ball. The stair turret to the west of the porch is outstanding, looking as good as if it was built yesterday. The brick outlining to the clerestory is gorgeous.

You step inside to a feeling of confidence and strength. This has always been an important church. The treasures of the building include one of Norfolk's best rood screens, and some superb medieval glass collected in the south aisle. The screen is well-documented as the work of three artists, and depicts, on the north side, from the left, St Agnes and her lamb, St Helena and her cross, St Thomas, St John the Evangelist, St James, St Andrew, St Paul and St Peter. On the gates are St Gregory, St Jerome, St Ambrose and St Augustine. Interestingly, these four doctors of the Church are in the same position at Salle, and are also on the font at nearby Great Witchingham. On the south side, the Saints are St James the Less, St Bartholomew, St Philip, St Jude, St Simon, St Matthew famously in his glasses, St Matthias, who appears to be carrying a filofax, and the uncanonised Sir John Schorn conjuring the devil into a boot. Of these, the last and St Gregory are heavily vandalised, Sir John probably because of superstitious practices associated with him, and St Gregory because of his papal tiara. You can see all the panels below, in order.

The stained glass has many angels playing instruments, heartbreaking echoes of Norwich St Peter Mancroft and East Harling. Tom Muckley pointed out to me the tiny detail of an ear of barley, motif of the 15th century Norwich school. Among the angels are tantalising fragments: St John the Evangelist's eagle, the head of God the father, what is probably the cloth of St Veronica, a dove descending, and so on. Because of the way they are set in the bottom of a window it is possible to see them, and photograph them, at close quarters.

The traceried base courses to the tower continue inside the building, and set in the tower arch is a pretty little gallery which is something quite unusual. The inscription along the front appears to read: God spede the plow and send us ale corn enow oor purpose for to make: At crow of cok of the plowlete of Sygate: Be mery and glade wat good ale yis work mad. Ale corn is barley, of course, and a goodale was a fundraising celebration held by a guild, in this case the Plough Guild of Sygate. There is a suggestion of a pun in the last phrase, suggesting that Wat Goodale might have been the name of a donor of the church; if you move the colon forward four words, it becomes an injunction to be merry and glad at crow of cok (that is, sunrise) at the Sygate Plough, and then that Wat Goodale yis work mad (this work made). The Plough inn remained in use well into the 20th century, and when it closed in the 1960s the sign was given to the church, and is still on display.

The gallery is commonly referred to as the Plough gallery, although there is no reason to think that the guild had a particular association with this part of the church. In front of it rises the impressive 15th century font cover, although the font beneath it is surprisingly run of the mill considering the building that contains it.

Looking up, the roof is far from commonplace. It is one of the best of the East Anglian angel roofs, relatively unrestored and with occasional traces of original colour. Angels take flight from the wall posts and stand within the hammer beams, although the figures at the east end are not angels. There are three of them, one obviously a woman; perhaps they were figures from an annunciation, although Pevsner inclined to the idea that they were simply 19th century additions. You will be distracted from them in any case by the remains of the doom painting above the chancel arch, including the haunting shapes of the rood figures that stood against it, as at Wenhaston in Suffolk.

Unusually for East Anglia, but as at Salle, St Agnes has transepts. The south transept roof is richly decorated, and punctuated by bosses of faces which may depict donors. Also probably donors are the two figures either side of the central figure in the important wall painting on the east wall of the transept. She sits between them on a throne, a book in her left hand. She lifts her other hand in the air, seemingly in benediction, but if you look closely you can see a dove pointed towards it. The guidebook suggests that it is Mary, but I do not think this can be the case, since the pose depicts none of the conventional Marian iconography. I am inclined to the other view that it is in fact St Agnes, the dove kissing her ring, and that this was probably the chapel of the guild of St Agnes. Once, an altar would have sat beneath it, lit in the afternoon by the now blocked window in the west wall opposite. She also appears on the roodscreen, of course, and these taken together with the known existence of a guild support the presumed dedication of the church.

In the south wall of the transept is a very elegant piscina, too far from the painting of St Agnes to have supported an altar there, so there must have been another one here. In the spandrils are a wild man and a dragon, echoing, although not repeating, those above the west door.

Stepping through the screen, the chancel is simpler and more elegant, reflecting its origins on the other side of the Black Death. A curious set of three misericord seats has been sandwiched into the gap where the sedilia once was, supported rather awkwardly under the right hand feet. The seats certainly weren't there originally, and may not even have come from this church, but they look very fine now. Two seated figures support the left hand seat; there is a comical face in the middle and a stag flanked by two dogs on the right. The most curious figure is on the easterly arm; it appears to show a dragon with something in its mouth, a figure perhaps, in which case it might be a rare symbol of St Martha. There is no figure on the other arm, suggesting that this set was once one of at least a pair, and stood end-on to a north wall.

The pulpit is a good 15th century one, a reminder of the emphasis that the pre-Reformation church placed on preaching. But the oldest object in the building is down by the south door. It is an alms box that, in the manner of parish chests, requires three separate keys turned at the same time to open it. One would be held by the Rector, the others by churchwardens. They must have been a suspicious lot here in those days.
With two great churches in such close proximity, you feel compelled to pass judgement on which is the finest and the most significant. Well, it was only my first visit to either Cawston or Salle, so I didn't really feel in a position to do so. But I did like Cawston best.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew is one of three churches in the fields around the village of Woodton, on the Diss to Yarmouth road. The three have similarities, but this one is probably the most interesting of the three. In fact, there were once four; St Mary was in the same churchyard, but all traces have disappeared.

The perspective towards the road is full of confidence, a large medieval building extended and heightened over the centuries. The clerestory runs the full length of the building.

The lower stage of the late Norman tower is rather characterless, a 15th century bell stage making rather more of it. But it presents us with a bit of a puzzle. We know that round towers, a Saxon obsession and not one necessarily forced on them by building materials, continued to be built for centuries after the Norman invasion, even though the Normans brought with them new forms and ideas. However, take away that aisle and the clerestory, and with the caveat that the south transept is a later rebulding, we have what appears to have been planned as a cruciform church. This is borne out by the arcades at what would have been the crossing, which are substantial and open to south and north (although there is no north transept). They suggest that a central tower was planned. But here we are today, with a round one at the west end.

There is a stunningly beautiful priest doorway into the chancel, and inside a sense of medieval opulence, including a marble piscina set. Why was this? Simply, Bedingfield was in the patronage of Walsingham Priory, the richest in Norfolk.

All in all, the chancel is quite one of the loveliest I have come across, helped by that big expanse of plain glass in the intersecting tracery of the east window, Jacobean altar rails and a splendidly uneven brick floor. Step back into the nave and view it through the medieval screen, and it is breathtaking.

In the north aisle east window are some fragments of medieval glass collected together in a not wholly successful composition (but presumably set that way for ever now thanks to the rules of the heritage industry). St Paul with his sword is at the top, with two Saints beneath - the figure on the right carries a basket of bread, and is therefore St Philip. Mortlock thought the left hand figure might be St James the Less, because of that Saint's connection with St Philip, but there is no reason to think they are in their original configuration, and his alternative selection of St Thomas is more likely, as you can just make out the tip of a sword beside his head.

The large Flemish roundels either side are fascinating - they were clearly designed for a much bigger church, probably a cathedral. They were donated to St Andrew in the 1970s by Kings College, Cambridge, which had inherited them.

The bench set is largely medieval, some bits probably cobbled together later. Part of one bench back bears an inscription asking us to pray for the souls of Simon Tillas and his wife. It looks like it probably came from a screen, but it is hard to see how it could have come from the screen here, so probably from somewhere else. The lost St Mary, perhaps? And why was it reset in a bench back? Probably, it is a nice little Victorianism.

This church is part of the Hempnall group of parishes, all of which are friendly, welcoming, well-kept, lovingly used and open every day. God bless them!

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew

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St Andrew the Apostle

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St Andrews & All Saints

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St Botolph

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St botolph

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St Catherine

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At first sight, St Catherine was a bit of a disappointment. A round towered church set romantically among misty ploughed fields, it seemed little different to nearby Topcroft, Woodton and Bedingham. From the churchyard gate the Decorated tracery of the east window looked suspiciously restored, and there are no aisles, no clerestory, barely even a separate chancel.



But Fritton's reason for glory is exactly the opposite of Shelton's. Simply, it was not rebuilt in the late medieval period, and so retains its wall-paintings, as well as other medieval fixtures and fittings in a simple, rustic space. The great red-brick buttresses to the chancel are like echoes of Shelton; but are almost admonitory, as if to say that the rebuilding there was a vanity on the part of Sir Ralph Shelton, when all that was needed was a bit of propping up.


Inside, the St Christopher is unimpressive, and we are in a part of East Anglia where there are scores of them. But it is more interesting than it first appears, because the ribbon along the bottom is a dedicatory inscription, and the two figures kneeling before a cross that you can just make out in the foreground are John Alward and his wife, the donors themselves. Further along the wall are a restored St George, and just before the rood loft entrance a disarmingly young bishop. Mortlock deduced that his 13th century mitre meant it was St Edmund Rich, a canonised former Archbishop of Canterbury.



More impressive, I thought, were the 15th century panel paintings on the screen under the modern rood. Eight of them survive, six on the north and two on the south. The best are the first two, which feature the donors of the screen, John Bacon and his wife, their fourteen children arranged piously behind them. The azure blue above them is stunning. They face the four Latin Doctors, Saints Augustine, Jerome, Gregory and Ambrose. Gregory's papal tiara has been scratched out, presumably by 16th century Anglican reformers. Curiously, Jerome's cardinal's hat has not. Two disciples across the gap are St Simon and St Jude. St Simon is exquisite, but his face has been scratched out. The earthier St Jude retains his. In the spandrels are unicorns, and St George facing up to the dragon. Wonderful stuff.

St Cuthbert

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St Edmund

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St Edmund

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St Edmund

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St Edmund

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St Edmund King and Martyr

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St Edmund is a fine building, with a pretty turreted round tower. The bell stage is a lovely Decorated adornment to the Norman tower, dating as it does from the 13th century rather than from the 15th as you more frequently find. There is a thatched nave and a good mixture of medieval window traceries. A very late roodstair turret has been truncated, but is still striking. Beside it, a lowside window is set in an ogee-arched alcove. And that is just the exterior. For, just as outside it is not at all typical for an urban church, so the inside is similarly full of survivals of earlier times. St Edmund quite puts its town in the shade.

You step down into an interior which has been restored neatly but not overwhelmingly. As I said before, this does not have the feel of an urban church. In front of you is one of the two great treasures of St Edmund, the 15th century font.

Curiously, the dedicatory inscription reveals 1410 as the year of the donation, but not the name of the donor. Four of the eight panels contain symbols of the four evangelists. Angels alternate with formal images in the other four panels. One angel holds a shield depicting the instruments of Christ's passion. Another holds a shield depicting the symbol of the Holy Trinity. More powerful than this, the very rare medieval image of the Holy Trinity has also survived on this font; God the Father sits on a throne, holding the crucified Christ between his knees while the dove of the Holy Spirit descends. God's face has been smashed, probably by 16th century Anglican iconoclasts. The current face is a later restoration. Hauntingly, the stone cross still has the fixings for the body of Christ, which may have been made of wood or metal.

Opposite, the Holy Mother of God weeps with her dead Son on her lap. This image has also had its faces smashed out. As with the image of God the Father, the more enlightened Victorians restored them sensitively, but I suspect Mary's face was originally more anguished - today, she appears rather serene. The whole piece is breathtaking, particularly since it retains much of its original colour. You can see images of some of the panels below. After the Reformation (but not before the faces could be smashed) it would have been plastered over before the Victorian restoration led to its being revealed. What does it all mean? This font is an act of Catholic catechesis. It depicts images that are at once devotional and instructional, allowing the people to both use it as a focus for prayer, but also to form an understanding of doctrine. For this above all, it was broken and hidden from view.

Acle's screen is intricate and lovely, the narrow chancel arch making it taller than it is wide. The dado panels are painted in familiar reds and greens, and stencilled with monograms of St Edmund, an E interspliced with the martyr king's arrows. A modern rood group sits above the screen, but how elegant the whole thing must have looked in medieval times with its rood loft thrusting forward and running the full width of the nave! There were stairways to the loft on both sides; as mentioned before, the external stairwell survives on the south side, and on the north side the space has been filled in with a lovely modern window.

Stepping through into the chancel, you can see the other great treasure of the building. This is a large graffito scrawled on to the north wall. It was written during a time of pestilence, and reveals something of the human misery that is often hidden from us in history books. It was uncovered in the early 20th century, but for many years had to be covered to stop it fading. It has now been fully restored, and is protected behind glass. It is written in Latin, and is incomplete, because a later window punched through part of it. In translation, it is at once a hopeless cry for help and a call for prayer, an anguished reflection on the prevailing circumstances:

Oh lamentable death, how many dost thou cast into the pit!
Anon the infants fade away, and of the aged death makes an end.
Now these, now those, thou ravagest, O death on every side;
Those that wear horns or veils, fate spareth not.
Therefore, while in the world the brute beast plague rages hour by hour,
With prayer and with remembrance deplore death's deadliness.

Dating of such things is not an exact science, but there are a couple of clues that suggest an answer. Firstly, the use of Latin and the call to prayers for the dead suggest this is before the 16th century Reformation. Secondly, the use of the words 'horns' and 'veils' seems to refer not to sinners and the righteous, but to lay and religious women - the horns probably are the horned headress which was popular in the middle years of the 14th century. Almost certainly, then, this graffito coincides with the Black Death, a particularly virulent outbreak of bubonic plague which swept through western Europe in 1348 and 1349.

How terrifying. I wonder who wrote it? The Parish Priest? Was he holed up in the church saying Masses for the dead while all around the pestilence grew and took its toll? In Norfolk, the Death of 1349 carried away about half the population. Few and far between must have been the families unaffected. It changed the world for ever.

It is worth pointing out that, like wallpaintings, this graffito survived because East Anglia did not succumb to the Victorian fashion for raking out internal plaster to reveal bare stone. This is because there is no stone - Acle, as with almost all medieval churches in Norfolk and Suffolk, was built out of flint and clunch. Dispensing with the plaster wasn't an option.

Standing here in awe may distract you from the brass beneath, but it is worthy of note. It depicts Thomas Stone, Vicar here during the reign of James I. It is the only 17th century brass of a minister in the whole of Norfolk. What a pity it is mounted on the wall! I know that parishes do this with the best of intentions, but it is a mistake. If there was a fire, the brass would melt. Floor mounted brasses don't melt - the heat rises away from them.

Also here in the chancel is a pretty roundel of glass depicting the Holy Mother of God. I suspect that it is a modern replica, but it is very lovely all the same. It matches the Lady altar in the nave in being simple and devotional. I decided I liked this church a great deal.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St Faith

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St Faith

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St Faith

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St Francis

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St George

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St Giles

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St Giles

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St Helen

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St Helen

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St Helen

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St James the Great

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Happy the church which finds itself in a tourist hotspot - and happy the church explorers, too, for it means you are going to find it open. Actually, this part of Norfolk is remarkable for its number of open churches, and so it is with a happy heart that we can embark on the long path up to the porch of St James.

The church is exceptionally large, and a reminder to us what a busy place this was before the 16th century. The magnificent 15th century Perpendicular tower is wholly rational, leaving the mysteries of the middle ages behind. A low clerestory and tall aisles accentuate the width of the place. The east window plainly does not live up to the rest of it, being the result of Ewan Christian's middle-brow 1870s restoration. Lots of other windows appear to have been replaced, possibly earlier that century, but the chancel itself still retains broadly its early 14th century integrity. There are rather splendid bears sitting on the two-storey sacristy.

A curiosity on the south side of the church (that is, away from the village street) is that there is a large, blocked opening above the priest door. The doorway itself has been renewed, the opening blocked at that time. It was probably a window, but may have been the fixings of a priest door porch as at Trunch. The suggestion that it was a 14 feet high doorway so that a knight could enter on horseback is not terribly likely - before the 16th century, people other than the Priest simply did not enter the chancel, let alone horses.

You will probably not find yourself on your own in St James, because it is one of the three main attractions of this pretty little hilltop village; and, conveniently, it sits halfway between the castle and the priory, just off of the little market place. But it is a big enough interior to bear company. It is also very high in a different sense; this church is still in the Anglo-catholic tradition, with a working holy water stoup and the smel of incense. You can also light a candle, and there are of course those useful little notices for protestants explaining what it is all about.

It is not just these features that remind me of the church at Little Walsingham. St James also has a bright, clean, fairly modern interior, with a number of medieval Catholic survivals dotted about. The first of these is Castle Acre's towering font cover, one of the best in Norfolk. It dates from the end of the 15th century, and the plain yet elegant font suits it well.

The otherwise excellent guidebook repeats the myth that these covers were intended to stop people stealing holy water for witchcraft. A moment's thought will recognise that holy water was freely available in any case, because there were holy water stoups outside all entrances. People customarily took water holy water home to use in their own devotions, and this was an accepted practice, as it still is in Catholic culture to this day. The English hysteria about witchcraft did not really get going for another 100 years in any case, when those in charge were Anglicans. In fact, font covers were almost completely decorative, although it was important to have some means of preventing the water becoming contaminated with dirt, which explains the locking.

Castle Acre's greatest treasure is its splendid pulpit. This hexagonal wine-glass has five large panels, four of which feature Saints Augustine, Gregory, Jerome and Ambrose, the four Latin doctors of the Church. These four were a popular devotion in late medieval Norfolk, being found on numerous screens, at least one font, and on a similar pulpit at Burnham Norton. The pulpit there has two extra panels featuring the donors; perhaps the blank panel here did the same. The four doctors have been substantially restored, although it would appear that Gregory's papal tiara and Jerome's cardinal's hat have escaped their customary vandalism.

The dado of the roodscreen is all that survives, with very attractive cusping - indeed, the reliefs are super, and it is a shame that not more survives, and that the panels have been so over-restored. They feature the 11 original disciples and St Matthias. Although much of the painting you see now is Victorian, they appear to reproduce very faithfully what was there before. Two points of interest are the figures of St James and St Andrew.

James has had his eyes gouged out, a reminder of how unpopular his cult was with the Anglican reformers. This was because of his association with pilgrimage, which in turn was connected with the doctrines of purgatory and prayers for the souls of the dead, both anathema to protestants.

Andrew has been peppered with gun shot - this time probably not as a theological statement, but a misfiring of a bird gun. In the late 17th and 18th centuries, when the churches of England had generally fallen into a poor state of repair, there were often problems with birds, especially jackdaws, setting up home in the nave and chancel roofs. At Blythburgh in Suffolk and South Creake in Norfolk we find, documented in the churchwardens accounts, people being paid to shoot birds in church; at South Creake, where shotgun pellets have been found in the angel roof, it is recorded that no less than 120 were shot in 1680 alone.

Perhaps Andrew had the misfortune to have a bird land on his panel, attracting the wrath of some local gun-toting youngster. Let us hope that no one was standing nearby; I assume that he had been told to only fire upwards.

The rood screen was just part of an apparatus that ran the full width of the church, enclosing chapels at the east ends of both aisles. These have survived - or, at least, their wooden framing has, and you can see where the parclose lofts were. Once, you could have walked on them right across the church.

That in the south aisle encloses the St Nicholas chapel, which was its medieval designation. A surviving couple of screen panels feature his monogram. There is a good panel of medival glass here depicting a knight. It probably does not represent St Gerorge, being partly composite; the shield does not belong to the figure.

Misericords of medieval origin have been fitted into the later stalls in the chancel, and probably came from the Priory church. The cusping of what must have been a magnificent canopy over the piscina has been sliced off flush to the wall, presumably to be plastered over and then later revealed by the Victorians. High on the opposite wall is a small window into what was probably a chapel above the sacristy. Some wag has put a skull in it facing outwards, no doubt in an attempt to generate a host of myths and legends.

But my main impression was of a well-loved, well-kept devotional church that is very much alive.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St John

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St John the Baptist

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St John the Baptist

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St John the Baptist

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It was a bit of a grim old morning when we arrived at Garboldisham. You can't expect a lot in late October, I know, but the sky had been clear when I'd left Ipswich and the forecast for Norfolk was for more of the same. But here there was a thin grey drizzle, and so we sought sanctuary inside, deciding to explore the outside later. There is a great mystery to it, but I will have to keep you in suspense a while longer.

As you see from the fancy tracery in the east window, the Victorians did a lot of work here, and apparently had a really good time. The effect is as striking from the inside as much as the outside, with vast acreages of 19th century glass, some of it very good, and that highly polished confidence that comes from a generation that took going to church seriously. They knew they were right.

But St John the Baptist is not without its medieval survivals, one of which is worth a visit alone. This is the base of the screen in the north aisle. Legend has it that it came from the abandoned neighbouring church of Garboldisham All Saints, the original St John the Baptist screen base being reset across the church in the south aisle after WWII, when it was found built into the structure of the rectory pigsty. All of this may well be true, of course, although it doesn't quite sound right - where was the All Saints screen in the time between the ruination of the church and its placing here by the Victorians?

Whatever, it features four panels, all of interest. They are St Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople and a minor Doctor of the Church, St WIlliam of York, St Mary of Magdala and a pleasingly simple St Agnes. It probably dates from the end of the 15th century.

Both Pevsner and Mortlock miss the 1579 brass to John Carlton, which is surprising because it has an associated merchant mark, a rarity. There's also a good set of Queen Anne arms.

That mystery outside, then. If you stand to the west of the tower you can see that there was once a western porch. These so-called galilee porches, named for their role in the Holy Week processions, are unusual in East Anglia. Pevsner points us towards the one over the Suffolk border in Lakenheath - in fact, this is quite wrong; the structure there was never a porch, but a lean-to buiding, and it was built after the Reformation. There is one at the other end of Suffolk on the round tower at Mutford, and a very grand one at Bottisham in Cambridgeshire, which you can see on the Cambridgeshire Churches site. But whatever was here has now gone.

Come round to the north side. Here there is a very grand porch, with flanking niches and invocatory inscriptions all about it; and yet, there is something not quite right. Simply, it doesn't seem to fit. The arch is the wrong shape for the spandrels, as if it has been narrowed, and there is a messiness about the way it fits to the side of the church. It would appear that at some point the western porch was moved around to this side. And there is more; the inscription above asks us to pray for the soul of William Pece - but this inscription is obviously recut, with no evidence I can see that it replicates exactly what was there before. Indeed, it appears incomplete. I wonder to what extent it is a Victorian confection.

In 1787, James Taylor sought himself a more furtive immortality, carving his name into a shield on the south face of the tower. You can still see it today. And despite the best efforts of those Victorians, the tower still speaks to us more of the 15th century than of their enthusiasms. It's beautiful.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St John the Baptist

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St John the Baptist & All Saints

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St John the Baptist Timberhill

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St Julian

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St Lawrence

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St Leonard

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret

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St Margaret's

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St Martin

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St Martin

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St Mary

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St Mary

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Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road; but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the ony sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south; no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. When a church has a fine setting, I do tend to go on a bit about it, reaching for the Oxford Book of Extravagant Adjectives; here, I will merely say that the view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.

But there is more. You will need to cross the river, and go into St Mary, for there are two features here that make it a visit essential. One of them is the seven sacraments font, one of 22 in Norfolk, one of less than 40 in the whole country. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.

On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ; also popular is the Crucifixion. There are one or two seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, so I wondered if it was actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk: a doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.

The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed; statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later.

But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new; seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.

This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images; more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that put me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (possibly the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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A person in possession of a decent Ordnance Survey map is never in want of knowing what the church tower in the distance is, but East Anglia has so many medieval churches that anyone without such a map can be confused. How helpful it is, then, to approach St Mary and see the letters ERPINGHAM lettered around the battlements of the 15th century tower! In fact, this is not a medieval attempt at a village sign, but a reminder that the bequest which paid for the tower came from a member of the Erpingham family - and to be fair to him, he also paid for Marian monograms to intersperse the letters. What a bold tower this is, and how long and low the 14th century nave and chancel look, especially seen from the aisleless north, without a clerestory. There is a delightful Annunciation scene in little niches either side of the west door.

Erpingham is one of those special places you find in Norfolk. It has become a place of pilgrimage because it is a hotspot of the most vigorous kind of Anglo-catholicism; as at South Creake in the west of the county, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. A medieval building stripped bare by protestants and puritans in the 16th and 17th century, little more than a preaching house during the long 18th century night, it was touched by the great 19th century wave of sacramentalism sent out from Oxford, and repopulated with the colour and drama of its original function in the early years of the 20th. You enter here into the heart of the Anglo-catholic imagination.

Stepping in from the south is curiously like entering South Creake; the aisle emptied of furnishings, the uncluttered nave with its simple Victorian benches, an understatedness offsetting the numerous devotional statues that line the arcade. Urban Anglo-catholic churches can sometimes seem continental; but there is something very English about this place, its Marian devotion sympathetic to the rural setting, a reminder that the rest of the world considered England 'Our Lady's Dowry' in the days before Anglicanism. As I said, there is no north aisle, and there are more 19th century benches, these without poppyheads, against the north wall, reminding us that this is actually a small church. Although it would be an improvement to replace the benches with modern chairs, everything is simple yet beautiful, the setting for a good number of medieval survivals.

Pevsner tells us that the font came from the now destroyed church of St Benedict in Norwich. He also notes that it has been drastically recut, but it is still rather lovely, with standing figures in the stem and seated figures on the panels. One of them apears to be Christ at the Last Judgement, now with the face of a woman.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St Mary

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Fishley is a pretty little round-towered church set on a tree-crowded mound among flat fields. The nearest road is about a mile away, although there is a track to it which is just about driveable. There are no houses nearby, but the village of Upton is across the fields, and there is a good view of Upton church about half a mile off.

There is a restrained 15th century crenellation tothe top of the tower, and pretty little lancets and Y tracery windows. It is all very understated. Very unusually for this part of Norfolk, the church is kept locked. This is a pity, but I assume it is for the lack of anyone to make the journey there twice a day to lock and unlock it. There is unlikely to be anything medieval surviving here; even the font is 19th century, although I am told people travel to see the 18th century organ case.

One curiosity. The building has been very Victorianised, all in a neat Norman manner, which can sometimes be depressing, but isn't here. However, Pevsner claims that the south doorway is original.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary

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St Mary & St Margaret

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St Mary & St Walstan

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St Mary Magdalene

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St Mary Magdalene

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St Mary The Virgin

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St Mary The Virgin

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One of the delights of exploring medieval churches is that no two are the same as each other, every single one is different. But, of course, some are more different than others.

The structures that come down to us from the medieval times have been buffetted by the winds of history, but have also been shaped by the eccentricities of the families and individuals that had an influence upon their repairs, extensions and restorations. The gothic forms of the middle ages resonate across all churches of the time; but consensus falls apart in later centuries, especially in that most eccentric of all architectural periods, the late 18th century. Also, this is a time when the use of a church is called into question; when we look at a medieval English parish church today we need to remember that what we are seeing is essentially a Victorian vision of the medieval, not the real thing. Our 18th century ancestors would not recognise the insides of their churches if they came back to them today, with their sanctuaries, benches and coloured glass. The 18th century was a time of low congregations, and the family at the Big House could pretty much run the church their own way, if they had a mind to.

The Boycotts of Burgh did. As patrons, they presented their own sons to the living for nearly two hundred years - that is to say, the Boycotts not only owned the place, they ministered to it as well. They made themselves responsible for the repair of the building, which was in rather bad shape by the late 18th century. As was common for the local gentry, they saw the parish church as their mausoleum, but rather than fill the building with elaborate tombs, they built an extraordinary structure onto the base of the ruined tower, thus killing two birds with one stone.

The Boycott mausoleum was the work of Samuel Boycott, who in 1793 obtained a faculty to repair and build up the steeple which has long been in a ruinous condition. Can't have been much arguing with that in the Bishop's office, but you wonder if he submitted plans along with it. Probably, there never was a tower. The base is very late medieval, probably early 16th century, and it is likely the tower was never completed before the Reformation intervened.

And so, Boycott's folly went up. The little church guide says that it is supposedly based on a church which Samuel's son saw on the Grand Tour in Italy, but observes that it has more in common with the ziggerat temples of Iraq.

Beyond, the full length of nave and chancel are thatched, probably from the reed beds that extend across to Suffolk to the east of the church. It is relatively new, the previous roof having been destroyed by fire as recently as 1998.

Inside, all is fairly typical of a high church 1880 restoration, retaining the medieval font with its typically local peasant heads, and, fortunately, the extraordinary pulpit of 1811, again the gift of the Boycotts, emblazoned with their memorial plates in brass. The Marian dedication of the church was probably a result of 19th century enthusiasms. The screen is 20th century. Of more interest are the decalogue boards, once at the east end but now suspended against the west wall - they are huge.

Not all the Boycotts became Rectors. Samuel's grandson Charles did not follow his older brother into the ministry, but ended up as a land agent on a vast estate in County Mayo, in Ireland. In the agricultural depression of the 1880s, he attempted to enforce rent rises on behalf of the absentee landlord. He became the test case of the Parnellite Land League's attempt to fight such rises. He was shunned by everone in the parish - when his carriage drove by, the people turned their backs on it. Servants refused to work for him. Shops refused to supply him with goods. Nobody spoke to either him or his family for more than a year. Because of the success of the campaign, Absentee landlords refrained from imposing rent rises, and, filled with new confidence, rural support avalanched to republican candidates. Within twenty years, Sinn Fein would be the largest single party in Ireland.

Boycott returned to Burgh a broken man, having already given his name as a new word to the English language. He died here in Burgh, and his simple grave is just to the east of the church, a gentle reminder of the excesses of English colonialism, and more than a footnote in Irish history.

This information has kindly been provided by Norfolk Churches - www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

St Mary the Virgin

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St Mary The Virgin

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St Mary the Virgin

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St Mary the Virgin

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St Mary the Virgin

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St Matthew

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St Michael

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St Michael

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St Michael

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St Michael

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St Michaels & All Angels

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St Nicholas

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St Nicholas

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St Nicholas

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St Nicholas

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St Nicholas

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St Nicholas

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St Nicholas

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St Paul's Tuckswood

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter

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St Peter & St Paul

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St Peter & St Paul

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St Peter & St Paul

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St Peter & St Paul

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St Peters Church

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Built of flint in Saxon times with Norman doorways, mediaeval brasses and a Victorian top to the tower, it is hidden from view on the south side by tall trees but is visible when approached from the north.

Clippesby's parish Church is dedicated to St. Peter. It is one of the old, round-towered churches so typical of this area and its history can in part be read in its stones. It is an Open Church. Built of flint in Saxon times with Norman doorways, mediaeval brasses and a Victorian top to the tower, it is hidden from view on the south side by tall trees but is visible when approached from the north. Forming part of a Benefice with Martham, Repps-cum-Bastwick and Thurne. Services are often shared with the other three churches.Forming part of a Benefice with Martham, Repps-cum-Bastwick and Thurne.

St Remigius

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St Stephen

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St Swithin

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St Thomas

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St.Mary the Virgin

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Stalham St Mary

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Syderstone w Barmer: St Mary

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The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Vary

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The Good Shepherd

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Wymondham Baptist Church

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Located in the heart of the historic market town of Wymondham, Norfolk, Wymondham Baptist Church has been worshipping and serving the local community and wider world for over 200 years!