CHURCH LARKING - Weybourne Parish Church & Priory Ruins

Some time back in 1200 CE, the monastery in West Acre, near Kings Lynn, run by Augustinian Canons, was made aware of a situation in Weybourne. It was a small settlement, with a smattering of Christians. It had a Saxon church built in the early 11th century, that was currently without any incumbent minister. They decided to send a handful of monks, initially on a sort of outreach basis.

This appears to have accelerated into the construction of a small priory, built around the Saxon church that was already there. This was only ever a small scale foundation. Ambitious though that felt, it appears to always have been struggling to thrive. Monasteries in villages or town settings, usually provided some sort of devotional context for the lay population. Either they shared the nave space with the village, or if finances allow, they provided a completely separate lay church.

Weybourne Priory evolved on an adhoc basis. What they chose to do was build a nave for the local population, alongside the fabric of the existing monastery. When you look down Weyborne Parish Church's Nave towards the Chancel, you can visibly see that these two church elements are substantially misaligned.

Internally there is not much left of substantial interest to note in All Saints Church. Its quite a plain edifice, stripped by the well intentioned hands of the Victorian tendency to scrub everything clean. Obviously well looked after, it is nonetheless lacking in intimacy and a feeling of all embracing warmth. The eastern side of the nave I think maybe the oldest exizting part of the nave interior. It looks like an old monastery wall, with no windows in it, to allow you to peer through to the cloisters of the priory.

As you exit the church, look up and left into the roof space of the porch. There you'll see in the roofspace the remains of a spiral staircase, fireplace and shrine alcove of what was once a room above the porch. Often mistakenly thought to be a priestly shrine spaces. These rooms above porches could function as a space for a caretaker to guard the church at night, to deter robbery or desecration. But at Weybourne this room was used as an Chapel for Wayfarers to find sanctuary. That you could get access to the Chapel without needing to enter the church or monastery.

Externally the porch is a beautiful, if worn, example of checker board work, executed in flint and brick. With an empty niche, post the Reformation, and a small window in the Wayfarers Chapel. The tower is mostly 14th century, and the rest Victorian restored late 13th century Early English. 

Ones eyes at Weybourne are always going to be more captivated by the monastic ruins. Half of the original late Saxon church tower remains, still with a suggestion of its belfry windows. The original monastic choir Chancel and side Chapel is either half there, or there in outline. 

The Priory ruins indicate that it had a small scale, ramshakle character. One might hesitate to say cobbled together, but finances was often in short supply. A large high arch just to the right of the exterior Chancel altar window, would have once graced the tower transcept leading through to the cloisters. What survives of the latter can only be viewed if you can get up high enough to peer over the empty window casement into the grounds of the farm grounds next door. Or in my case use my smart phone to take photos blind for me.

The Priory, in terms of the numbers of monks living there, was never high. This fluctuated, in 1422 there was only two Canon monks fighting over who would take the position of Prior. By 1494 there was a Prior and three canon monks. Well before the dissolution in 1513, a visitation tells us there was only a prior and one canon monk. So by 1536 Weybourne was first on the easy pickings list of religious foundations to be dissolved. With precious little left to be closed down, or canons to be pensioned off. One can imagine that it was already be in a semi-dilapidated state. What remained after the Dissolution Commissioners moved on, was left to the local population to make the best of. Which is what you see in this simple Norfolk church, with its more characterful priory ruins on one side.