CHURCH LARKING - Burnham Norton Parish Church

 

The one of the six churches in The Burnhams, this is most likely the one with the oldest surviving structures. Dedicated to two female saints St Margaret of Antioch and St Margaret of Scotland, it's an extremely well maintained church, with an ornate galvanised metal modern gate. 

The original site of Burnham Norton village was most likely between the church and the friary, as the present day village is half a mile away from the church. Why the village relocated is unclear, it maybe as a result of the Black Death, the River Burn silting up and marshes forming, meaning the village Staithe had to move further out towards the coast. 

The close proximity to the Carmelite Friary down the hill, maybe of significance in why there is such a tightly bunched proliferation of Burnham churches. All that survives of the friary today is a rather fine 15th century gatehouse, which on this visit was surrounded by scaffolding, as its present state seems in dire need of stabilisation and conservation work. You can still see the actual boundary of the monastic precinct, which may indicate that this was probably a moderately well off, but actually quite small foundation. 

As round towers go, Burnham Norton's is one of the finest examples I've seen. A sturdily constructed tower, that tapers gently as it rises to a belfry and crenellated crown. It's the oldest surviving part of the church, with a likely early Norman date post 1086, as neither a church or tower is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. The church exterior generally has the overly neat look of a careful Victorian restoration project. It does possess a fine range of matching 15th century perpendicular nave and clerestory windows.  One of the benefits for many North Norfolk churches when perched on top of a hill or escarpment, like it is here, is the quality of light such windows illuminate the interior with. 

The interior is unusual with a small central area of pews separated off from the side aisles and font by relatively modern strip pine screens. Forty years ago when I first visited this church my recollection is of a slightly more open interior. This current arrangement demonstrates the medieval processional nature of its side aisles. There are a number of piscina, and a former communion bread oven in these aisles, which would indicate they once had side altars to saints, usually supported by donations from local medieval guilds. The pillars in the nave are 12th century Norman round in the north arcade and 14th century octagonal in the south. As with most North Norfolk churches, windows are plain diamond patterned glass. Surviving medieval stained glass is a rarity, and coloured window glass is generally, as here, 19th or 20th century in date. The east windows in the chancel are from the 1920's and feature depictions of the two female saints to whom the church is dedicated.

One reason to seek out this church is it's surviving medieval furnishings. It has a unique North West Norfolk style of Norman square font, which is quite low and chunkily carved, with deeply incised decoration on all its sides. 

East Anglia, post the Black Death and Famine in the mid 14th century, was in the middle of an economic boom, courtesy of its wool and weaving manufacturing. So it is not unusual that people who became wealthy during this time would become patrons to their local church, fund improvements to its interior and religious furnishings. There is an extremely rare survival of a 15th century wine glass wooden pulpit. Provided originally by local patrons John and Katherine Goldale, who are depicted kneeling on two of its panels. The standard Four Doctors of the Church, St Gregory, St Augustine, St Ambrose and St Jerome, are all seated at desks in the remaining panels,  With an inscription in Latin saying ' Pray for John Goldale and Katherine.. they had it made' then the date of 1450. Insensitively restored in the Victorian era, a more appropriate restoration was completed in the 1970's which revealed the original colouration and decorative scheme.

Alongside the pulpit is the remains of a medieval rood screen. Donated to the church by William Groom and his wife in 1458, so contemporaries of the Goldales. Most of the painting on the screen panels is now indistinct. Three panels had saints painted and the fourth was one of the donors. In the 18th century you could still make out some of the saints, The Virgin Mary, St Gregory and King Ethelbert. To the far left of the screen is the remains of a stairway that led to the rood loft, from which lessons from the Bible would have been read. Some remaining socket holes in the chancel arch indicate a crucifix, the rood, once hung above but separate from the screen. The screen itself was restored in 1953, when it was given a new rood loft replacement. The carved heads either side of the porch doorway most likely depict medieval people who also donated money for this to be built. 

St Margaret's has a quietly understated atmosphere, which somewhat downplays the medieval treasures it holds. It's unique semi open layout, may be more how rural medieval churches were once arranged.

CHURCH LARKING - The Church of The Holy Transfiguration - Great Walsingham

 

Great Walsingham, is Little Walsingham's close cousin, a mile or so up the road. A cluster of picturesque houses, a ford, and in the centre an old Methodist Chapel converted into an Orthodox Church. The old chapel was purchased in 1986 and has become over time what you see today. . Externally the church architecture is very standard late Victorian non conformist style. Not very flashy, with echoes of the gothic in its windows, and an artful but subdued use of two tones of brickwork. As you step beneath it's tympanum, then through a pokey little vestibule, you enter into a compact, but very beautifully decorated Orthodox Church. Its like opening a very plain box to find this gorgeous present inside.

Converting this chapel must have entailed completely gutting the interior of its original furniture, pews, panelling and pulpit. Because what you see now in it's interior is a radical transformation, inserting an Eastern Orthodox structure into the empty box of a chapel. Changing it from an austere paired back protestant aesthetic, into this colourful embellished richness, which could not be more the antithesis of Methodist. Orthodox services are largely performed with the congregation standing, so the centre of the room is usually left relatively free of seating with only a choir lectern in the middle. As the services are often a hour and a half, seating is provided at the back and sides for those who really cannot stand for such a long period. 

The visual focus here is the icon screen, which is the Orthodox version of the rood screen, which separates the body of the church from the area of the altar. This altar is called the Holy Table, and is rarely seen by the general congregation. Here in The Church of the Transfiguration it is guarded left and right by Angels, Gabriel and Micheal. Bookending its central area, known as The Royal Doors, which here has incidents from the life of Jesus. An Icon of Mary with the baby Jesus stands to the left and Christ on its right. And as you move around the church every bit of wallspace or pillar has some sort of icon hanging from it.  Above all of this a dome has been inserted, with an icon of Christ 'Pantokrator' painted upon it.

I know only very basic things about orthodox religious structures, its imagery and their meaning, nor whether there is any significance to the placing of these icon images. It is so different to your standard Catholic or Anglican place of worship. It does, however, possess its own unique and visually distinct power.  The church has a stillness and quiet to it, and even within its subdued interior light, you can feel the love and care that has been lavished upon, what is a small sacred space. It is filled with a particular type of awe and wonder. As a church it is one so easily overlooked, if judged by its exterior. But its interior I would say, is really worth the short walk out to Great Walsingham to see.

THE PAST IN RUINS - Blakeney Guildhall

English Heritage themselves seem unsure about this ruin. What exactly are the origins of it? They call it a 'guildhall', but does this create a mistaken impression that as a building it was much more important than is perhaps appropriate. This could easily be a simple undercroft of a merchants house or a monastic Cellarers Chequer of some kind? The history hasn't really give you an awful lot to go on. 

The Guildhall is sited to one side of Mariner's Hill. a large man made mound, which has served as both a look out and a beacon point for guiding ships into the harbour.  The mound itself is a bit of a local curio, with an unclear sense of when it was constructed. That the 'guildhall' cuts into the side of it might indicate that the hill predates it. And stylistically the building is 15th century. A few hundred yards further to the left is the entrance to the former site of a Carmelite Friary. 

For what was, and still is, a gaggle of small former fisherman's cottages around a narrow tidal port, the 'guildhall' is probably it's most significant surviving medieval construction after the parish church. Tucked behind one of the main streets in Blakeney. The English Heritage signpost directing you to it, was so rusted it's given up it's post. The building hasn't been open to the public on a daily basis since COVID. It is an overlooked and slightly dingy looking building from the outside. Though in 2026, it appears to be regularly accessible again.

You enter down some rough steps, relatively short but steep. You can see, once you are in, that though this is poorly lit, it is a quite impressively built crypt like building. This wasn't knocked up carelessly. It would have been relatively expensive to have constructed, beneath what must have been a substantial building above it. There are indicators in the walls of entrances, staircases and blocked up windows. The floor has been roughly paved with flint and brick cobbles, but a lot of it is compacted with dirt these days. The columns are very typical of the late medieval, octagonal in profile, branching out into simple, but elegant brick arches and transcepts. 

The question that really comes to mind is, did Blakeney really need a 'guidhall '?  You certainly see them in the much larger towns like Kings Lynn and Norwich. I know the North Norfolk coast was once a much more thriving sequence of competing shipping havens in medieval times. Cley just up the road, was by far the wealthier and busiest harbour on this length of coastline. They never had a 'guildhall', which makes the attribution of 'guildhall' to Blakeney somewhat questionable. 

It has traditionally been referred to as a 'guildhall', but that may be a local pretension, or for want of a better term. The strongesr suggestions are that this was originally built in the late 14th century simply as a wealthy local merchant's house. What is certain is that that house by the 15th century thebuilding had been adopted by a local group of Fish Merchants, not a 'guild' as such, but this might explain the 'guild' association. This undercroft was perhaps only ever used as a place for the storage of grain, fish and cloth. The living spaces up above, because they were not needed have not survived. That the undercroft has remained intact may be a testament to its continued usefulness as a place of storage over the past centuries. The building is an interesting anomaly none the less.

CHURCH LARKING - Aylsham Parish Church

Like many Norfolk towns Aylsham benefited from the prolonged boom in wool and cloth trading in medieval East Anglia. A priest was first sent here in 1066, and work on building a church began over a hundred years later. All that remains of that first church is the large Lady Chapel window tracery, the roof and chapel having been heavily refurbished in 1489. Some decorated roof timbers with an 'M' for Mary design, date from this period. This refurbishment undoubtedly brought it up to scratch with the north and south processional aisles that were installed earlier in this period. Viewed from the outside the window nearest the Lady Chapel looks abruptly cut off on one side. As most of the window tracery was replaced in the 19th century this might indicate there was a minor miscalculation in the window layout. 

Lady Chapel window and painted roof

Lady Chapel - 15th century Piscina

The remainder of St Micheal and All angels church, the tower and south porch are largely mid 14th century, built under the financial auspices of John of Gaunt, with the chancel being entirely rebuilt a century or so later. So this church was constantly upgraded to the latest architectural fashion, and there was enough surplus money washing around to finance that. 

As you look down the nave you can't help notice that the nave structure bows outward alarmingly. This may simply be a remnant of previously insecure foundations or the consequence of its original roof outweighing the ability of it's arches to hold. The remaining church architecture is largely unchanged since the small spire was added in 1600. Mostly it has been restoration work since the mid 19th century Victorian makeover by Rev Edmund Yates, who was an enthusiastic adopter of the Oxford Movement. But, it has to be said, this has been done with a degree of sensitivity. The nave roof though completely replaced, reuses most of the ceiling bosses from the original medieval roof. All the present pews installed at this time are in keeping, as were the several examples of fine stained glass you'll find scattered around the church, which are Victorian or later. Most are of a very accomplished quality, but you will find a couple of windows that were painted in enamels that have since deteriorated very badly. 

A deteriorated bit of stained glass

The very beautiful east window, with it's four evangelists, unfortunately ended up being partly obscured by the massively imposing reredos placed in front of it. This reredos is notable for two reasons. First, It was designed by John Repton, the architect son of Sir Humphrey Repton, the famous landscape designer, who is also buried in a tomb which rests against the outside chancel wall. Second, the reredos though it looks full on Victorian Gothic Revival, does very cleverly include some of the remaining upper structure from the original medieval roof screen, which sets ones imagination off reassembling it all in one's mind.

Sir Humphrey Repton's Tomb Memorial 

Medieval rood screen panels.

Aylsham has managed to retain all sixteen of the lower panels from its medieval rood screen. These portray all the typical saints you would expect. Unusually, they also include portraits of two Aylsham medieval wool merchants who paid for the rood screen to be gilded - John Jannys and Thomas Wymer.  The saint's faces have all been damaged or erased during the Civil War, but the original quality of the rood screen painting does however still impress. If you look up to the left of the screen you will find the blocked up doorway that would have provided entry to the rood loft itself. The rood loft, before the age of pulpits, was where sermons would be given, and in the absence of a gallery, where musicians might play. Behind the pulpit you'll find a locked gate and a small spiral staircase that still ascends to that doorway.

This staircase once led to a rood loft

15th century font

Wine glass Pulpit

Other pieces of church furniture to look out for include a rather fine 15th century font, with its carvings of the instruments of Christ's passion and symbols of the Evangelists. At its base are the coat of arms of John of Gaunt and Sir Thomas Erpingham. There are some worn medieval brasses set into the floor in the north aisle and the altar enclosure. Aylsham also has an extremely rare carved wooden wine glass pulpit from 1637 with its classically inspired panelling. This pulpit's staircase was entirely replaced in the 19th century. 

Altar sedilia with squint on the right

Through the squint towards the altar

Just to the right of the altar shrine you will find a squint in the wall that allowed you to view the sacrament. These are normally outside the church looking in, and are often referred to as Leper's squints. Was this squint originally outside, but is now inside. or was it conceived as an internal squint from the start? It is most likely a historical remnant from before the present wider chancel and aisles were installed. Otherwise one might be left to conjecture that Aylsham once had an anchorite cell, or an internal space set aside for ill people to view or take sacrament. Though there is no historical record of either happening here. 

For such a small town the church of St Micheal and All Angels, is a rather fine remnant of the medieval period, when it was truly flush with money,with a desire to use their patronage for status and prestige.