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Modern Britain
Gallery: Churches of Norfolk
by Peter Kessler, 3 May 2019
North Norfolk Part 1: Churches of Sea Palling to Walcott
The Church of St John the Evangelist, Sea Palling
within Waxham sits inside the eastern side of the Church Road circuit
which also encompasses Waxham Great Barn and other sixteenth century farm
buildings. Now pretty close to the beach due to coastal erosion, the
church was built by Thomas Wodehouse, 2nd Baronet of Kimberley, Norfolk,
in the late sixteenth century. Inside the church has Victorian floor tiles
but the old chancel has long been abandoned (on the left).
The Church of St Margaret of Antioch, Sea
Palling, is at the eastern end of Church Road which forms a dog-leg
after leaving the junction with The Street. The church is probably
Plantagenet in terms of dating (around the thirteenth century). It
was ruinous by the time of the Commonwealth, with 1674 patching-up,
and is mostly a Victorian restoration. Sea Palling suffered heavily
during the 1953 flood, and a plaque inside the church remembers the
local dead.
St Andrew's Church, Hempstead, is on the
eastern side of Church Lane, about 150m north of Heath Road, but it
is also visible from Eccles-on-Sea. A date of construction is not
known, but the features place it in the fourteenth century, and no
later then 1500. It also contains an impressive rood screen, thanks
to the quality of the painting on it. It has been labelled as
'exquisite', and certainly seems to be on a par with Norfolk's best
at Barton Turf.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Happisburgh
(pronounced haisbro) is to be found on the outer, northern edge
of Church Street. A church building is recorded on this site in Domesday
Book of 1086. In 1101 William D'Albini gave the church and the lordship
of the manor to the priory of Wymondham (later Wymondham Abbey), which
he had just founded. After the abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in
1539 the church passed to the bishop of Norwich.
The Norman church was completely rebuilt in the
fourteenth century, and only some reused stones in the base of the
tower survive. Fourteenth century features include a pair of
traceried windows in the chancel and a piscina set into the chancel
wall. This building was itself rebuilt in the fifteenth century. It
sits close to the oldest working lighthouse in East Anglia, dated to
1790. In 1940 bombs struck near the church, blowing out all the
windows on the south face.
All Saints Church, Walcott, is on the
eastern side of Coast Road, approximately 150m south of the Rookery
Farm Road junction. A church was here prior to the arrival of the
Normans, but the Saxon building was replaced in the fourteenth
century by the Norman stone version that exists today. The font
predates the church by around a century and stands on a Celtic
memorial stone, marking out the location as a potential early site
of worship.
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