Is there another part of the country which has so many historic churches per capita as the triangle of North Norfolk between Holt, Cromer and Aylsham? By my reckoning, 27 churches (not including ruins) serve a population of just shy of 4,500. In contrast, my (not especially populous) North London parish has one church for twice the number of souls.
Notwithstanding the challenges of having one church building for every 164 people, it’s fertile territory for the church-crawler. I explored some of these churches in Walk 24 and Walk 30, and I have now plotted three circular walks, each about 10 miles long, encompassing the rest. Today the sun shone brilliantly, while the thermometer pushed 20C. The first day of astronomical spring could not have provided more amenable conditions.
Mortlock aptly describes St Mary, Baconsthorpe as ‘a restrained, yet elegant little church’. There’s lots of interest inside: a splendid late sixteenth century monument in the south aisle, a fourteenth century Easter sepulchre in the sanctuary, and an apparatus for chiming a set of tubular bells. The latter, according to a faculty notice, is soon to be done up. The only other church I have encountered such a thing is St Barnabas, Jericho, in Oxford. Their strange sound – somewhere between a glockenspiel and scaffold pole – somehow suits the Byzantine eccentricity of church in a now-Bohemian Oxford suburb. They must sound quite alien in the Norfolk countryside.
I had made an early start, and the landscape shimmered around me as I made my way along a country lane to the long-redundant St Peter, North Barningham. There is no village here, and my only company was a poor wood pigeon, trapped in the church. This building is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
Inside there is a collection of excellent seventeenth century monuments, but it was a more modern tombstone in the churchyard – a reminder that this church and its yard are still consecrated – which caught my eye. Julian of Norwich’s ‘All shall be well’ is etched in immaculate lettering on a grave belonging to someone who died in 2020 – presumably succumbing to Covid. Julian’s self-induced isolation and profound sense of hope was such an inspiration during the darkest days of the pandemic. There is, I recall, a very similar tombstone, from the same year and bearing the same quotation, in the churchyard of St Andrew, Hempstead.
A Saxon round tower awaited at St Mary, Bessingham. Made of carstone – also, charmingly, known as gingerbread stone – it looks like it belongs in the west of the county. Unlike the stout Saxon towers at East and West Lexham, this one is slender. A notice in the porch explains that, in 2018, the PCC handed the church over to the Diocese of Norwich Churches Trust. This body, not to be confused with the Norfolk Churches Trust, exists to alleviate a PCC of the upkeep of a church, while keeping the building open for very occasional worship. It’s an interesting and innovative initiative, but will it find its capacity stretched over the coming years?
Inside there is a superb east window, given by his wife in memory of Lieutenant Colonel Robert John Spurrel, who, according to his memorial, died in 1929 after ‘twelve years of intense suffering borne with unfailing courage from illness contracted in the Great War’. The window shows a great company of angels, with Christ in glory at the centre and, underneath, tender annunciation. I pray that Lieutenant Colonel Spurrel may behold the reality of which this window gives such a moving image.
The footpath leading north of Bessingham is a glorious one, cutting through open fields. On my left, three fallow deer danced their way towards a stream, while hares cavorted joyfully on my right. Bees and butterflies had woken from their winter sleep. Spring had very definitely sprung.
I was greeted at All Saints, Gresham, by a couple who had just finished cleaning the church. It fills my heart to find people lovingly caring for God’s house. And here they do so in sight of what might be Norfolk’s best-preserved seven sacrament font. Apparently, someone had the foresight to plaster over the panels, presumably to protect it from pesky Protestants. The details are exceptional. Ordination includes a server carrying a thurible. Penance, the only panel with significant mutilation, shows an angel beating Satan over the head. An emaciated patient receives the last rites.
On then to the Beckhams. Not Victoria and David, but East and West Beckham, where a late-Victorian vicar demolished the remains of two churches to build a new one in the centre of West Beckham.
I had done some research on St Margaret, East Beckham. Ruinous since the early seventeeth century, it was demolished in 1890. It is not marked on OS maps. According to the Historic England website, the site was ‘completely obscured by vegetation’ in 1988, ‘but remains said to be 1m thick, L-shaped, and approximately 5m long’. The Norfolk Heritage Explorer website’s most recent entry is from 2004, and states that ‘the church site has been surrounded by a 2m high wire fence and the footpath provided to it in 1988… has been blocked with barbed wire and the bridge over the stream destroyed’. The only post on the Historic Churches of Norfolk Facebook page, from 2015, showed a few loose flints next to the aforementioned fence, and it is one of the very few churches without an entry on Simon Knott’s otherwise seemingly exhaustive Norfolk Churches. It seemed that no one had seen anything of the remains of this church since the advent of the digital age.
My intention was to see what I could see from the other side of the stream. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the stile over the fence has been (quite recently, I would say) restored, and, beyond it, a footbridge of sorts crossing the water. There was, as expected, a fenced enclosure. However, it seemed to me that it was adjacent to, rather than enclosing, the site of the church. On a slight mound above the surrounding ground, I trod through the dry stalks of last year’s perennial vegetation. I caught sight of some pieces of flint. And then, sure enough, the base of what I think must have been the north wall. Tracing this, I made out the foundations of both a west wall, and a tiny bit of an east wall.
It felt quite exhilarating, as if I was an archaeologist finding a long-forgotten site. Nettles were nipping at my ankles and, no doubt, all this would become inaccessible again in as little as a few weeks. I stood inside what I am sure would have been the nave, and prayed the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be – perhaps the first person to offer prayer on this site, set apart for this very purpose – in a very, very long time.
The bases of nearly all the walls of All Saints, West Beckham remain, and, because this is still the burial ground for the parish, are very easily accessible. Heading into the village itself, the ‘new’ church of St Helen and All Saints, West Beckham, joining its predecessors’ two dedications, is a sweet late Victorian building. It is currently closed because of an electrical fault.
Lower Bodham, and All Saints, Bodham, is half a mile south of the Bodham well known to anyone who regularly drives along the A148 between Holt and Cromer. This is an attractive church, whose stoup is decorated with glazed tiles, apparently made in 1578 by a brick-maker who re-roofed the church. Unfortunately, this was all I saw of Bodham’s treasures; the church is only open at weekends. It seems that the PCCs of many isolated churches, like this one, are choosing either to be open their churches less, or, conversely, never lock them at all. Thankfully, for this advocate of open churches, more fall into the latter category.
All churches visited, there was one more historic building of interest. The footpath across the fields to Baconsthorpe runs parallel to Baconsthorpe Castle. It has been closed for several years while important conservation work takes place. According to the English Heritage website it will reopen this spring, and the high-vis jacketed men on site certainly looked as though they were at the finishing stages. If it wasn’t for knowing that East Beckham will be under nettles by next month, I would have wished that I was doing this walk once the castle is open.
A general observation to conclude: We live in a society which is increasingly lacking in gratitude. People are rarely happy with what they have, and, from that state of unhappiness, want more. It is always easier to moan and groan than it is to say ‘thank you’. I wonder if that is particularly true in urban environments, where buses and trains arrive every few minutes, and one is never more than a few hundred yards from the nearest shop. One of the glories of the Norfolk countryside on a spring day is that it fosters in oneself a spirit of thankfulness. (At least it does in me.) Surrounded by God’s good creation, and beautiful buildings erected to his glory, it was hard not to be thankful.
‘O give thanks to the Lord, for he is gracious: and his mercy endureth for ever.’ (Psalm 107.1)
Walk 12 miles
I did this walk in anti-clockwise direction, but clockwise, as shown on the OS app route, gives a better approach to most of the churches, and a better view of Baconsthorpe Castle.
To see more images of this and all my walks, go to the Walking Norfolk's Churches instagram page, or search 'Daniel Sandham' in the Historic Churches of Norfolk Facebook page.
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