Snoring, not walking

At the beginning of the week, I had an old friend, Richard Bastable, come to join me for a couple of days. He knows his history, and his ecclesiastical architecture, and is one of those people who can quickly and skilfully ‘read’ a church building. He’s a good person to go church-crawling with. However, he is not given to putting on his walking boots and trudging through the countryside. This then gave me an opportunity on Monday morning to explore a couple of local churches by car.

This being Norfolk, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Great Snoring is smaller than Little Snoring. Further from the A148, and not being a thoroughfare to the more popular destinations of North Norfolk, it is – perhaps appropriately, given its name – also sleepier than Little Snoring.

Inside Great Snoring

The church of St Mary, Great Snoring is, however, a great church, befitting what would have been a significant and wealthy settlement. It sits at the centre of one of the most picturesque villages in these parts, and has what was surely the grandest of Norfolk’s parsonages: a Tudor mansion, just visible through the trees beyond the church. I thought my 1910s vicarage was hard to heat…

There’s not much here you wouldn’t see in other Norfolk churches, but it all fits together so handsomely. On entering you face a big, sixteenth decalogue board mounted on the north wall. Mortlock says it used to be behind the altar, but its shape surely suggests it was a tympanum mounted in the chancel arch, like Morston and Tivetshall St Margaret.

Royal arms, Great Snoring

Opposite, above the south door, are the royal arms of James I. The ‘I’ for James has been turned into a ‘C’ for Charles, and then back into ‘I’ for James II, plus an inscription added at the bottom with the date 1688. It’s a fancy version of the signs you see by the road around here advertising the village fete, with organisers keen to repurpose last year’s sign by changing dates and times, rather than make a new one.

The rood screen has panels showing the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, and the Holy Trinity. The Lady Chapel altar is flanked by several niches, a squint and an angle-piscina, all repurposed to hold variously an arresting statue of Our Lady, a carved angel rescued from who-knows-where, and, in the squint, the Reserved Sacrament.

Little Snoring

St Andrew, Little Snoring could not be more different. It is one of the most recognisable of Norfolk’s churches, because its eleventh century tower is detached from the church. The west side of the tower has a bricked-up Norman doorway, indicating that it once belonged to a church parallel to where the current nave is. It’s a bit of a conundrum, as the ‘new’ church shares architectural features with the tower. I like Simon Knott’s theory that the old church may have been demolished while it was still being built, perhaps because the ground was too soft, hence a not-much-later church using some of the same materials.

A tranquil simplicity awaits inside. All is ancient, as if this church was in a prayerful slumber. This hasn’t always been the case. There is a disused airfield across the fields, and a tablet recalls that the RAF worshipped here during 1944 and 1945. There are Royal Arms to James II here too. He was clearly popular in these parts.

Little Snoring's chancel

I recall visiting Little Snoring when I was 18, so almost a quarter of a century ago. The curator of my school’s museum was Nicholas Plumley, who at the time was writing a book about chamber organs, and had given me a list of instruments to photograph while on holiday. Such was the rock-and-roll of my teenage years. Great Snoring I think I have never visited before.

There is no footpath or bridleway between the two, so I am glad Richard gave me an excuse to give the legs a rest, and visit these churches, both prayerful and beautifully kept.