Norwich, RC Cathedral

St John the Baptist, open [as you'd expect a Cathedral to be], was one of the main reasons for a revisit to Norwich, the other being to properly record the main Cathedral's cloisters, and it is magnificent. Definitely worthy of a visit in its own right.

ST JOHN BAPTIST (R. C.), St Giles’ Gate. An amazing church, proof of Victorian generosity and optimism - optimism in this case concerning the future of Catholicism in Norwich. The church was built by the Duke of Norfolk, begun in 1884, completed in 1910. It was designed originally by George Gilbert Scott jun. and continued after his early death in 1897 by his brother John Oldrid Scott. The nave is by the elder brother, the chancel was designed by both. The church is of cathedral size, all ashlar-faced, 275 ft long and over 80 ft high inside the chancel. The nave is of nine bays, the chancel of four, the transepts of three with an E aisle, and there are a polygonal chapel attached to the E side of the N transept, and a tall crossing tower. The style is E. E., with all windows lancets and fine if conventional combinations of them, with flying buttresses for the clerestory, with a triforium inside, and with stone vaulting throughout, quadripartite in the nave (which was built first and finished in 1894), with ridge-ribs and tiercerons in the chancel. Sumptuous portals with black marble shafting, the same in the wall arcading and more in the E parts, and stiff-leaf capitals everywhere. The church is of course an end, not a beginning. It belongs to Pearson (not to Sir G. G. Scott Sen. incidentally), that is to self-effacing historicism. It has nothing of the new freedom and licences of Sedding or Caroe, i.e. the Arts and Crafts. - The thing which gives the interior its peculiar holiness is the STAINED GLASS, by John Powell of Hardman & Powell, and, for the E parts, his son Dunstan Powell. Its colours are dark and glowing, its composition designed on the principle of C13 cathedral windows - historicism here too and not Arts and Crafts, but supremely well done.

At the point where Unthank Road and Earlham Road meet just outside the old city wall, the Roman Catholic church of St John the Baptist rose between 1884 and 1910 on the site of the old city gaol. The gift of the 15th Duke of Norfolk, it is an impressive pile of grey stone in 13th-century style, and has been described as the finest Gothic building erected since the Reformation. It claims to be the biggest Roman Catholic church in England except for Westminster Cathedral and the cathedral now rising in Liverpool.

The church dominates the hill on which it stands, and its very foundations are level with the top of the cathedral tower. Under the chancel is a vaulted passage. The massive square tower rises from the middle of a cross, and the walls outside are enriched with buttresses, gables, turrets, flying arches, and many strange gargoyles. The east front (reminding us of Ely) is striking with its three tiers of lancet windows, flanked by buttresses with niches and turrets with pinnacles. The gabled entrances in the west wall of the nave are a charming feature of the exterior, and the north porch and the north transept are notable, for their stonework is magnificently sculptured, while their doors are covered with exquisite ironwork. Two fine rings in heads of lions are on the doors of the porch.

The majesty of a cathedral belongs to the interior of this great place, where dark marble blends with stone. Everywhere are stone vaulted roofs; the aisles have arcaded walls; the nave, the chancel, and the transepts rise with triforium and clerestory over their arcades. The nave occupies 160 of the church’s total length of 275 feet, and is 58 feet high inside. Its fine avenue of richly moulded arches rests on massive round pillars with plain and leafy capitals, and bases carved with foliage and fruit and dragons eating berries. It is a noble vista. Under the mighty arches of the tower we look up into a vaulted lantern with eight lancets. The rood across the eastern arch was carved by a craftsman of Oberammergau. Three arches on clustered shafts support a vaulted gallery at the west end.

The chapel in the north transept has glass (by Clayton and Bell) telling the history of the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was destroyed four centuries ago; the reredos is crowned with a figure of Our Lady of Walsingham, and shows in panels below the Annunciation, the Crucifixion, and the vision which led to the founding of the original chapel at Walsingham. In the mosaic of colour filling the noble group of three lancets in this north transept are Our Lord and His Mother enthroned, queens from the Old Testament, pilgrims adoring, and medallions of East Anglian saints.

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Norwich, St Giles on the Hill

St Giles, open, is full of interest - not least the C15th latten lectern originally, as aforementioned, from St Gregory - but whilst I enjoyed it the Victorian scrub up left me cold. This was the first church of the day where I found the, to me, rather odd collection of Mayor's mace rests which struck me as being somewhat vainglorious.

ST GILES, St Giles Street. The tallest tower of any Norwich parish church, 120 ft high, and building up beautifully when seen from the E above the chancel and nave gables. On the top is a pretty little cupola, effective from afar. This dates from 1737. The church was built in the late C14, but if the chancel built by Phipson in 1866-7 represents anything of the original state, it must have been Dec. Perp aisle and clerestory windows, Perp W doorway with niches, Perp W window of five lights, Perp four-light bell-openings with transom. The S porch is ashlar-faced; it has a top frieze with shields in running tendrils, a pretty cresting, and a fan-vault inside. So this must be a hundred years later than the rest. Arcades of five bays. The piers have an odd design. Four shafts and many thin mouldings in between, but more towards the nave than towards the aisles. The chancel arch corresponds to the arcade arches. Three tiers of niches l. and r. of it. Beautiful hammerbeam roof with the bosses supporting the hammerbeam and the braces rising on it constructed in one unbroken curve from the wall-posts to the top. No collar-beams. The angels against the hammerbeams cut across the braces and finish at the wall-posts. This is an early stage of the hammerbeam roof, as Cautley and Crossley explain. - FONT. Faces on the underside; flowers and little shields against the bowl. - SWORD RESTS. Five sets of them. - PLATE. A large London made set of 1738-9. - MONUMENTS. Brasses to Richard Purdaunce d. 1436 and wife, 45 in. figures, and to Robert Baxter d. 1432 and wife, 39 in. figures, both uncommonly good (nave). - (Chalice Brass to John Smyth d. 1499.) - Thomas Churchman 1' 1742 by Sir Henry Cheere, tablet with a very civilized frame and three cherubs’ heads below. - William Offley d. 1767. By no means Rococo in spiritedness, but violently Rococo in composition, i.e. demonstratively asymmetrical. The ‘predella’, oval inscription plate, and ledge for the top urn create a most unexpected zigzag movement upward. The monument is nearly identical with the Dame Anne Astley at Melton Constable d. 1768. - Sir Samuel Churchman d. 1781. By Rawlins. Good and neo-classical. On the sarcophagus a relief. Against the obelisk above, a portrait in an oval medallion. - Several other tablets are enjoyable.

St Giles’s church, just above the marketplace and the City Hall, was founded in the Conqueror’s day, rebuilt at the end of the 14th century in 15th-century style, and is now an imposing structure of flint (except for the stone porch), dominated by a tower 113 feet high. The highest tower of the old city churches, it was used as a beacon in the 16th century, and has among its possessions an old cresset like a wrought-iron basket. The porch is enriched with niches, and a fine cornice of shields under trailing vine and cresting; it is entered by a door with fine tracery, and its upper room rests on a lovely fan-vaulted roof, the only one in the church porches of Norwich. The interior is stately with lofty arcades between the clerestoried nave and aisles, fine windows filling it with light, and old roofs. On the ends of the hammerbeams of the nave roof 12 big angels with outspread wings hold shields with arms. The massive tower arch soars to the roof, and in front of it stands the font carved with flowers, tracery, angels, and shields, the bowl medieval, the rest 19th century. Shining in a tiny window in the gable of the chancel arch is the patron saint. The chancel itself is 1866, the old one having been destroyed in Elizabeth’s day; there are six angels in its roof. The fine brass of a 15th-century mayor shows Richard Purdance of 1430 with a thin bearded face, wearing a robe edged with fur and standing on a dog; and his wife in draped headdress, a dog in the folds of her gown. Two portraits on a brass of 1432 are of Robert Baxter and his wife. That of John Smith, a priest of 1489, has a chalice and wafer. There are many 18th and 19th-century mace rests, and a loose stone of the Norman church is preserved for us to see. The parish umbrella, 150 years old, is in the Castle Museum.

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Norwich, St Stephen

St Stephen, redundant and now a café, has a good collection of Alexander Wilkinson windows and the first of four alabaster Te Deum altarpiece remnants still in Norwich, the others being in St Peter Mancroft and the treasury of Norwich Cathedral.

ST STEPHEN, Rampant Horse Street. N tower with porch, the ground floor (see the entrance) C14 - as is also the S doorway. The ground floor is vaulted in two bays with a big circle in the middle and two figured bosses of which one represents the Stoning of St Stephen. Above this ground floor the tower is the result of a remodelling dated in large figures 1601.* Knapped flint friezes. Two-light bell-openings flanked by large blank two-light flushwork windows. Above on each side a circle, a lozenge, and another circle. In spite of this the tower appears still essentially Perp, and this is also true of the rest of the church, of which the chancel was indeed built in 1501-22, but the rest after the Reformation. Above the W doorway runs a frieze of small lozenges with, in the middle, the date 1550. Yet the W window of six lights under a four-centred arch is as convincingly Perp as the E window of five lights under its two-centred arch. The clerestory, with its splendid sixteen windows on each side, is internally as convincing, though externally the little buttresses between the windows have a post-Reformation touch. W and E walls are ashlar-faced.

The interior of the church is impressive. There is no chancel arch, so that the arcades run without any break for eight bays. The piers are octagonal, and their details are clearly no longer Perp. They have sunk concave panels in each side. Many moulded four-centred arches. Panelling above the arches in the East Anglian way. Hammerbeam roof with tracery in the spandrels and no motif betraying the real date of the work. - STALLS. Just four are left, one with a minor MISERICORD. - STAINED GLASS. In the E window a jumble of old glass culminating in five large figures and groups of 1511 from the monastery of Mariawald near Heimbach in the Ruhr valley. Also English C15 fragments and others. - In the head of the W window many small figures in clear colours, according to the Ecclesiologist 1865 by Heaton, Butler & Bayne. - In a S aisle window glass by Kempe, 1905. - PLATE. Chalice and Paten (Norwich) 1567-8 ; two Flagons (London) 1626-7; Chalice and Cover (London) 1631-2; Almsbasin (Norwich) given in 1694; Paten or Dish (London) 1718-I9; Spoon dated 1753. - MONUMENTS. Brass to a Lady, early C15. - Brass to Thomas Bokenham d. 1460. - Brass to Thomas Cappe d. 1545 (2 ft figure). - Brasses to Richard Brasyer and his son, who was Mayor in 1510. Also to Robert Brasyer and wife (28 in. figures) made c.151-15 (all chancel). - John Mingay, 1617, tablet with kneeling figures facing each other across a prayer-desk. - Charles and Mary Mackerell. By John Ivory. She died in 1747. A very fine architectural tablet. - Elizabeth Coppin d. 1812. Of Coade stone, signed Coade & Sealy. Gothic below, but with a normal Georgian chubby putto by an urn above.

* The figures were unfortunately removed in 1960.

St Stephen’s church, with fine flint facing, built between 1350 and 1550, attracts us down an alley leading from St Peter Mancroft. The tower (its unfortunate date 1601 referring to restoration) stands on the north side of the church and forms a porch with a low vaulted roof, its bosses carved with such scenes as the stoning of Stephen, an owl, and a grotesque head. There is fan-vaulting in the north chapel, and the lovely old hammerbeam roof above the long clerestory of 32 windows has carved wallplates and traceried spandrels. The font has a cover with a big golden pelican, a fine chest is covered with heavily studded bands of iron, and in the sculpture of an old alabaster panel are nine saints. The modern benches have fleur-de-lys poppyheads, and six old stalls have carved arm-rests. Glowing with colour, the east window has old glass of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, much of it a jumble with figures and faces, and Christopher as one of five figures. Three of five portrait brasses are of the Brasyer family, showing Robert (mayor in 1410), Richard who was mayor twice in the 15th century, and Richard mayor in 1510, all wearing fur-trimmed gowns. With Robert is his wife Christiana in kennel headdress, a rose clasp to her girdle. Dr Thomas Cappe, in his robes as vicar, rebuilt the chancel and began the splendid roof; he died in 1545. The brass of a lady in a graceful flowing gown, her mittened hands at prayer, and two quaint little bedesmen sitting among the flowers at her feet, is probably over 500 years old, though some believe her to be 400 only, supposing that she is the last prioress of Campsey. In the monument to John Mingay, mayor in 1617, two figures kneel at a desk.

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Norwich, St Peter Mancroft

St Peter Mancroft, open, is a vast building which, whilst containing lots of interest including monuments, brasses, a rare font canopy, some outstanding glass including the C15th East window, and alabaster remnants of a Te Deum altarpiece, I found difficult to warm to. Externally it is resplendent and its domineering position on the market square is impressive but internally it's all too spick and span to really grab my wholehearted attention.

ST PETER MANCROFT, Market Place. Begun in 1430. A large donation towards the building of the chancel in 1441. The church was consecrated in 1455. St Peter Mancroft is the market church, as they say in Germany, of Norwich and the Norfolk parish church par excellence. It lies in a splendid position, a little above the market place and facing it broadwise. It has a mighty W tower and is 180 ft long and ashlar-faced, all symptoms of prosperity and ambition. The tower, however, it must be reluctantly admitted, is more rich than aesthetically successful. Every motif has been lavished on it, and in the end this very prodigality has defeated its object. Yet the details must be enumerated. First the tower gains by the processional way through it, i.e. the N and S arches in addition to the W entrance and W doorway inside. The space between these four arches has a tierceron-star-vault with a big circle in the middle. The buttresses are mighty but ill-defined, polygonal below but with spurs as if of set-back buttresses. There is a base frieze of flushwork and a frieze of shields above that. The arches have shields in cusped fields up a moulding of jambs and arch. The W window is of five lights with a frieze of niches below. There are niches and shields also higher up by the window. The buttresses have niches in three tiers with big pedestals. The lower stage of the wall is flushwork-panelled, the upper stages have three tiers of stone panelling with bases for many statues. Bell-openings of three lights, niches to the l. and r., more panelling over. Short polygonal turrets and a small lead-covered spire or spike with dainty flying buttresses, too playful to make a stand on this tower. It was added in 1895 by A. E. Street. It raises the total height of the steeple to 146 ft.

The aisles and transepts have four-light windows with two-centred arches. Base friezes of flushwork panelling and of shields, buttresses with niches. N porch of two storeys. Stoups and shields l. and r. of the entrance. Niche above. Lierne-vault inside and finely shafted doorway. The S porch is a little simpler. It has the usual tierceron-vault inside, but with two plus two pairs of tiercerons. Doorway with two mouldings studded with fleurons. In the transept end walls simply rusticated doorways with four-centred heads, probably of c.1650 (see below). Chancel aisles of two bays, chancel projecting by one bay with a passage from N to S under it. The E: wall was damaged in 1648 and repaired by Martin Morley. The present E window is of seven lights and flanked by polygonal turrets. To the E of the chancel and accessible from it by two small E doorways a three-storeyed vestry and treasury. But the finest motif of the church, as seen from the market place, is the clerestory with its seventeen windows.

The interior is dominated by the tall arches of the eight-bay arcade, the immensely tall tower arch, and the tall transept arches. There is no chancel arch. The arcade piers are quatre-foil with small hollows in the diagonals, and the arch mouldings have sunk waves, C14 rather than C15 motifs. The W bay is squeezed in by the tower buttresses, another proof that the tower invaded the nave. Beautiful hammerbeam roof. The hammerbeams rest on long wall-posts between the clerestory windows, and these in their turn rest on busts. Flat niches in the stonework beneath. The hammerbeams are not visible. They are concealed by a ribbed coving like that of a rood screen (cf. Ringland and also Framlingham, Suffolk). Many bosses. Aisle roofs arch-braced with tracery. The tall square transepts, or rather transeptal chapels, have lierne-vaults of wood.

FURNISHINGS. FONT. Shafted stem, the reliefs of the bowl hacked off. - FONT CANOPY. A canopy, not a cover, cf. Trunch and also Durham Cathedral. Four square supports, and on them an octagonal canopy so that the diagonals come forward to a point, stressed by a pendant. Big octagonal super-structure with crocketed cap. A pelican on top. - REREDOS. 1885 by Seddon, but remodelled and enlarged by Comper in 1930; neo-Gothic and neutral. - A few STALLS with simple MISERICORDS. - LENTEN VEIL, that is the curtain to cover the rood during Lent. The pulley wheels and boss are still in position.- ORGAN GALLERY AND LOBBY. Of  c.1707. Fine woodwork, as in a City church in London. With fluted columns and pediment. - BENCH. One plain one (S chapel). - WEST DOOR. Traceried. - Three sets of SWORD AND MACE RESTS. - SCULPTURE. One small C15 alabaster panel with female saints (chancel). - PAINTINGS. Liberation of St Peter by Charles Canon, 1768 (N aisle). - Barnabas by the Cross and Moses on Pisgah, by William Blake Richmond. - STAINED GLASS. The 12 window a bible of East Anglian C15 glass, though not made for this window. Forty-two panels with stories of Christ, the Virgin, St Peter, St John Evangelist, St Francis, etc. - In the S chapel E window good glass of 1921, in the style of Eric Gill. By H. Hendrie. - TAPESTRY (S aisle W). Resurrection, Flemish, dated 1573. - PLATE. A veritable treasure. Very fine, London-made Chalice and Cover of 1543-4 with a classical figure at the top ; Sir Peter Gleane’s Cup and its Cover (London) 1565, very sumptuous; Cup and Paten (Norwich) 1566-7; two Flagons (London) 1612-13; Alms-basin inscribed 1635; Paten-Dish (Norwich) given in 1657; Flagon (London) partly 1683, partly 1741-2; Paten (London 1689-90; Spoon (London) 1711-12; Chalice (London) 1738-9; Almsbasin (London) 1753-4; Paten (London) 1779-80; Knife (London), Late Georgian.

MONUMENTS. Brass to Sir Peter Rede d. 1568, but in armour of the late C15. Palimpsest of a better late C15 Flemish brass. The figure is 33 in. long. The inscription records that Peter Rede served the Emperor Charles V at the conquest of Barbaria and the siege of Tunis (chancel floor).* - Francis Windham d. 1592. Big tomb-chest with Tuscan columns and shields in strapwork surrounds. On it the demi-figure of the deceased, frontal, and over it canopy and curvy top. An uncommon composition. - Augustine Curtis and Augustine Curtis ]un., d. 1731 and 1732, carvers. By James Barrett (N aisle W). A column in front of an obelisk. Cherubs’ heads to the l. and r. half concealed by drapery. - Many more good tablets.

* (Also groups of children of the brass to Richard Aylmer 1512.)

We do not wonder that Norwich is called the City of Churches. Once there were over 50, and even now there are 33, within the old boundary. Most of them are 15th century rebuilding on older sites, and most are of flint; most of them have towers, but the only attempt at a spire (except for the lovely spire of the cathedral) is at the modern St Peter Mancroft.

Second only to the cathedral in size and importance, and ranking among the finest churches of our land, St Peter Mancroft (in which lies immortal Sir Thomas Browne) is a handsome building with walls of flint and stone. Begun in 1430 and completed in 1455, it is said to take the curious part of its name from “magna crofta," the big croft or meadow which became the marketplace. Shaped like a cross, the church is 212 feet long and 90 feet wide across the small transepts; the nave is 60 feet high, and the west tower nearly 100 feet, its 19th-century lead-covered spire rising 146 feet. Owing to the slope of the site, the chancel and the eastern sacristy are raised on crypts and a vaulted passage. There is a vaulted passage through the stately and beautiful tower which is the glory of the church outside, its high walls enriched with panelling, the stringcourses with quatrefoils, and the double buttresses with niches.

The north porch has two stoups, and three niches round the entrance with modern figures of the Madonna, Peter, and Paul. It has an upper room resting on a vaulted roof with tracery and carved bosses, one showing St Peter blessing all who pass below. Attractive without and within are the two long lines of the clerestory, a lantern of 34 traceried windows throwing light on to the lovely old roof and on the delicate stonework of the great arcades. The arches are on clustered pillars so slender that they impede no view, and we can see everything in the church at a glance. There is no chancel arch. The roof of the nave and chancel are splendid, and unusual in treatment; along both sides is fan-tracery in timber, springing from shafts supported by corbels quaintly carved into heads of men and women, some like figure-heads; and above the timber vaulting is a richly carved cornice, the two sides having between them nearly 40 angels holding shields and emblems. In charming contrast to the vaulting are the straight lines of the stout rafters of the middle of the roof, adorned with rich bosses. The aisles have good old roofs, their spandrels carved with tracery. The magnificent tower arch, soaring almost to the nave roof, has niches in the mouldings all round. Halfway up is a stone gallery where the ringers peal the twelve bells.

One of the priceless treasures of Norwich is the glass in St Peter’s east window, sparkling as if with jewels, and coming chiefly (except for seven of its 42 panels) from the 15th century. Most of it is in its original place; among that gathered here from other windows is some from the chapel in the north aisle, founded by Thomas Elys (mayor three times) and known later as the Jesus Chapel. Some of the panels have fragments, others have scenes from the lives of Our Lord and St Peter. In one Bethlehem picture the swaddling clothes are being warmed in front of a small Dutch brazier; in another angels are removing the thatch from the stable roof so that the rays of the yellow star may shine on the Child. Other windows have shields and many old fragments. The east window of St Anne’s chapel in the south aisle has beautiful modern glass with 30 pictures from Bible story and lives of saints, denoting Faith, Courage, Love, and Vision; it is a tribute to the men who fell in the Great War.

The font is arresting, not for itself (for it has lost its figures) but for the rare and elaborate canopy which has sheltered it since the 15th century. The canopy has a fine traceried roof, and rests on four richly carved pillars which stand on one of two high steps and are crowned with minstrel angels. The massive dome surmounting this remarkable erection is 19th century. The roodstairs and doorways are still here, and two of the stalls keep their misereres. The elaborate reredos is modern.

At each side of the reredos is a doorway leading to the sacristy, which has an oak roof supported by carved heads and a table which was the canopy of an old pulpit. The 500-year-old door by which we enter has through all these centuries been made secure by the same lock, moving a heavy bar into a slot in the stone wall when the key is turned. Many rich Flemish merchants lived near the church, and it may be because of their piety that St. Peter’s is so rich in possessions. Among those which make the sacristy a treasure house are medieval manuscripts, including a 1340 copy of the Vulgate exquisitely written and illuminated, and St. Paul’s Epistles with a Commentary, 12th century and illuminated; a 15th-century chest containing the church registers complete from 1538; a ringer’s jug of glazed brown Norwich pottery, holding 36 pints, used for hotpot when ringing out the old year; an alabaster panel carved with the Evangelists and their symbols; and the magnificent church plate, perhaps the finest possessed by any church in England. Among the 17 pieces is the superb cup and cover of silver-gilt (richly embossed with a representation of Abigail’s visit to King David, the camels laden with gifts) which was made in Elizabeth’s day and given to St. Peter’s in 1633 by Sir Peter Gleane, mayor in 1615. There is a small pre-Reformation cup shaped like a thistle. One of two 16th-century paintings shows the Resurrection; the other is a curious picture of the Thorn in the Flesh, showing a toad-like demon piercing St Paul’s leg while he is praying.

Elsewhere in the church are two pictures by Sir William Richmond: Barabbas at the foot of the Cross, and Moses on Pisgah; a beautiful alabaster panel with saints (one St Margaret piercing the mouth of a dragon) found by the sexton when digging a grave; and a grand old linen chest eight feet long. Of two fine pieces of tapestry one is about 1700, with Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the other is earlier, and believed to have been worked by Flemish weavers, with Our Lord in a red robe rising from the tomb and appearing to the disciples. On the nave pillars are elaborate sword and mace rests of three centuries.

A brass portrait in the chancel, showing a knight in armour, is of Sir Peter Rede, a soldier who served with the Emperor Charles the Fifth. It is a palimpsest, being part of a Flemish brass of about 1500 commemorating a merchant. Under the canopy of his tomb in the north aisle we see Francis Wyndham, an Elizabethan judge, wearing a skull cap with his mantle and ruff, one hand on a skull and one holding a book.

The memorial with coat-of-arms and inscription to Sir Thomas Browne was set up in the chancel by Lady Dorothy, his affectionate wife for 41 years. Philosopher, physician, and author of Religio Medici, he lived at Norwich from 1636 till he was buried in the chancel in 1682. When he wrote that “to be knaved out of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking bowls and our bones turned into pipes, are tragicall abominations excaped by burning burials,” he little knew that his own skull was to be knaved out of his grave, sold to a Norwich doctor, and kept in a museum for eighty years. It was put back into his grave in 1922. In the sacristy is a plaster cast of his skull, the shield-shaped brass plate from his coffin, and one of the best existing portraits of the doctor, painted soon after he was knighted. In a little garden in Haymarket, on the south side of the church, our own century has set up a bronze statue of him, sitting musing while he holds before him a fragment of one of the Roman urns which inspired his book on Urn Burial. In Orford Place near by a stone marks the site of Sir Thomas’s house, once the meeting-place of learned men from all parts of England.

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Norwich, St Gregory

I didn't do interiors at St Gregory, redundant, because it is now an antiques centre and I thought that as a commercial enterprise they wouldn't welcome me wandering around recording monuments et al. A quick search of Flickr returns lots of interior shots so another church I need to revisit.

ST GREGORY, Pottergate. W tower tall, with flushwork-panelled battlements. The spire was demolished in 1840. W doorway inside a shallow little porch with a quadripartite vault. The doorway has panelling up one moulding of jambs and arch. All windows in the body of the church Perp with two-centred arches. The arcade piers (four-bay arcades) indicate a date between Dec and Perp: four strong shafts and eight very thin ones in the diagonals. Castellated polygonal capitals. Two-centred arches. The clerestory, with eight closely set windows, concurs. The window tracery is still Dec. Two two-storeyed porches, attached to the W walls of the S and N aisles. The S porch has two bays of quadripartite vaulting with ridge-ribs and bosses. Niche above the entrance. The N porch is simpler. The chancel projects one bay beyond the aisles. Very tall windows. The chancel was rebuilt in 1394 at the expense of the Cathedral Priory. A passage runs from N to S under the chancel (cf. St Peter Mancroft). The most enjoyable feature of the interior is the inside of the tower. There is a vault high up and a stone gallery looks down whose underside is also vaulted. Both vaults are tierceron-stars, with two pairs of tiercerons and a big bell-hole, but the upper one has strictly speaking no diagonal ribs. Instead three ribs rise from the corners; they are then cut off by a diagonal, and the rest of the vault is continued from there. Traceried STOUP under the tower. - FONT. At the foot four rather alarming, grotesque busts and four lions’ heads. Against the bowl shields in cusped fields. - FONT COVER. Jacobean. Low with volutes. - SCREEN. Only two and a half panels of the dado remain; with painted figures. - STALLS. Four in the chancel. The MISERICORDS have a lion, two angels, and a bearded man. - Eagle LECTERN of brass, East Anglian, dated 1496. It belongs to the same type as the lecterns of Oxborough, Lowestoft, Oundle, and also Holy Trinity Coventry, St Michael Southampton, Southwell and Newcastle Cathedrals, and Urbino Cathedral. - DOOR-KNOCKER. Now in the S chapel. An outstandingly good piece of the C14 with a lion’s head devouring a man. - WALLPAINTING. Large, N aisle W. It represents St George, dates from the mid C15, and is in an unusually good state. - STAINED GLASS. A few bits in a N aisle window. - TEXTILES. C16 pall with the repeating motifs of an angel holding a soul in a napkin and a dolphin. - Also an earlier piece of a cope. - PLATE. Chalice and Paten (London) 1609-10; Flagon (Norwich) 1627-8. - MONUMENTS. Francis Bacon, 1659. Big tomb-chest (S chapel). - Sir Joseph Payne d. 1668. Tablet with a broad frame illustrating military equipment. Compact garland below the open segmental top (chancel N). - Sir Peter Seaman d. 1715. By Thomas Green of Camberwell. Demi-figure in a niche pointing forward with a baton. Putti l. and r. (N chapel). - Joseph Chamberlin d. 1762 by Thomas Ivory. In an elegant architectural frame (nave W). - Several more good Georgian tablets.

St Gregory’s (the third of the four important churches near the marketplace), comes chiefly from the end of the 14th century. The platform of the altar is raised ten steps above the floor of the nave, and has an arched vault beneath it. The porch of the tower has a vault with fine bosses, and from it we look through the lacy veil of birch trees in the tiny square to the tower of the City Hall. The church tower has beautiful vaulting; and the clustered pillars of the high arcades have embattled capitals. There is part of a worn pall of crimson velvet, and another old pall embroidered with a design of angels and fishes. Old woodwork is seen in four stalls with carved arm-rests and misereres, and a fragment of the screen has paintings of saints and an angel, one being Barbara with her tower. A reminder of the days when members of the Guild of St George worshipped here is the great wall painting in the north aisle, showing St George fighting the dragon while the princess stands by and the king and queen look on from a high tower. A great treasure is a brass eagle lectern with three lions at the foot, for it is dated 1493, and is one of about 50 old ones left in England*. Another treasure is the brass escutcheon now on the vestry door, its old ring gone; it is the head of a lion with a man’s head in its mouth, set in a border of trailing leaves, and fashioned in the 14th century. Shields and angels adorn the splendid 15th-century font which stands on the heads of four lions and four men. Sir Francis Bacon, who gave money for the repair of the font, has a huge altar tomb. He was one of the judges who resigned after the death of Charles Stuart rather than take the oath in the name of the people instead of in the name of the king.

* Now in St Giles on the Hill.

Norwich, St Andrew

At first I thought that St Andrew, locked, no keyholder, was redundant but a quick Google search shows it's still in use - they just don't want you to visit outside of Sunday mass times.

ST ANDREW, Broad Street. Placed a little above the street. Perp throughout. The W tower, which has no proper parapet nor battlements, was built in 1478, the rest - see the inscription of I547 inside, on the W wall of the S aisle - in 1506. Only the frieze of shields above the E window is older and re-set. The heraldry connects it with Appleyard, the first Mayor of Norwich, who lived in what is now the Bridewell Museum just opposite to the S and died in 1419. That the W tower is earlier than the present church is evident from the way the porches from the S and N lead against walls of the tower meant to be visible - see the base frieze. The aisles continue the porches to the E, i.e. the doorways from the porches into the church lead E. The tower has panelled buttresses. Some flushwork decoration on the N side. A frieze of shields above the W doorway. The aisles, clerestory, and chancel are ashlar-faced, the porches have exposed flint. The porch entrances have traceried spandrels. In the N porch also a tall niche above it. Frieze of shields at the base of the chancel. Specially pretty tracery in the chancel N and S windows. Large four-light aisle windows. Clerestory with eleven closely set windows. Tall five-bay arcades, the piers with four shafts and in the diagonals four long shallow hollows. Four-centred arches. Blank panelling above them. Very tall tower arch dying into the imposts. The aisle windows are set in wall-arches. - Much of the FURNISHINGS is High Victorian, especially the FONT, the stone PULPIT and low stone SCREEN of 1870, the REREDOS etc. of 1856, and the ORGAN CASE of 1908. - The FONT COVER is dated 1637. Four columns, openwork obelisk in the middle, octagonal canopy with a ball at the top. - PLATE. Elizabethan Chalice (Norwich); Paten Cover inscribed 1568 (Norwich); very ornate Chalice and Cover (London) 1617-18 ; Paten (London) 1670-1; Almsdish and two Flagons (London) 1704-5. - MONUMENTS. Unusually many. In the chancel Brass of a Civilian, early C16, the figure 3 ft long. - In the N chapel: Robert Suckling d. 1589, with the usual kneelers facing one another; Francis Rugge d. 1607, in flat relief without effigies; Robert Garsett, 1613, frontal bust under arch with two small kneeling figures l. and r; also Sir John Suckling (to his wife who died in 1613). This is a standing monument of alabaster with her recumbent and him reclining on his elbow. Stiff figures. They lie on a black slab which is not the lid of the tomb-chest but carried by four skulls on the tomb-chest. Columns l. and r. carrying a superstructure. Children kneel by their heads and feet, others against the tomb-chest. Many inscriptions, large and small; for instance SPARISCO with a flame rising out of an urn, and SCIOLTA with a dove released from a cage. Also, where the son kneels; ‘Frater mater nostra non morta est sed dormit’. - In the S aisle Dr Thomas Crowe d.1751 by Robert Page, with arms in front of an obelisk, and John Custance d. 1752 by Rawlins, also in a very nice Rococo. - In the N aisle Hambleton Custance d. 1757, also by Rawlins. This has a weeping putto in front of an obelisk. - On the w wall Richard Demmison d. 1768. Turning neo-classical. - (Also canopy of the lost brass of John Gilbert d. 1467, children from brass of John Holly d. 1527.)

Clustering between the river, the castle, and the cathedral are seven old churches and a great building which was once the church of a Dominican priory. In the street bearing its name is St Andrew’s, second in size and importance only to St Peter Mancroft. It comes from an ancient structure rebuilt in 1506, except for the tower, which was made new in 1478. Great windows fill it with light. Lofty arcades run from east to west, and over them is the clerestory with 11 windows on each side. Oak angels support the shafts of a roof with original moulded beams and carved wallplates. There are three sedilia with rich canopies: a chest, a chair, and the font cover are 17th century and all carved; the tower screen has much of its old work; the old glass in the north aisle windows is a colourful jumble with figures and shields and scenes, one having a skeleton standing by a bishop.

There are brass portraits of a man in a fur-lined robe and his wife in kennel headdress; she has a purse and beads, and both are at prayer. Robert Garsett’s wall monument of Shakespeare’s day shows him in red robe and ruff, and two small kneeling figures in high hats. There is an inscription with the thrilling name of Abraham Lincolne of 1758, perhaps uncle of the American President. In the north chapel (now a memorial to men who fell in the war) is the big canopied tomb of Sir John Suckling of 1613 and his wife, parents of the poet Suckling. Sir John reclines in armour, his wife lies in Elizabethan dress, and one son kneels at their head, another at their feet. Four daughters kneel on the front of the tomb, the top of which is raised on four skulls to show the shrouded figure lying within. On the canopy are women playing fiddles. Robert Suckling of 1589 kneels with his wife in a wall monument, their children behind them; in the spandrels are Father Time and cherubs playing cup-ball.

The Sucklings were ancestors of Nelson, who came to this church when a boy at the grammar school. Suckling House, their old home near the east end of the church, where the poet’s father was born, was built perhaps before the Black Death which took away most of the population of Norwich. It has been much restored, but the hall has its fine trussed roof, and a door with beautiful carving which was here before Robert Suckling came in 1564. The Suckling motto, Thynk and Thank God, is carved on remains of an Elizabethan fireplace. In the old walling is a 14th-century doorway opening to the hall from outside, and a vaulted passage leads to a small courtyard. On a tablet outside are names of people who have lived here, from William de Roolesby of 1285, and in one of the modern windows are some of their arms. Used now as a public hall and offices, the old house was given to the city by the Colmans in memory of a sister, together with the modern Stuart Hall joining it. Facing Suckling House is Armada House with overhanging storeys, an oak corbel with 1589, and a panel showing a ship in full sail.

It was outside St Andrew’s church that Kett and his rebels shot clouds of arrows and were routed by Captain Drury and his harquebusiers. Facing the church are the two halls which were originally the great Dominican church rebuilt by Sir Thomas Erpingham. Since the Dissolution the nave and its aisles have been a banqueting and concert hall, 126 feet long and nearly 70 wide. Known as St Andrew’s Hall, it has arcades of seven bays soaring to the fine range of clerestory windows (28 in all), a great hammerbeam roof, and a gallery of many portraits. The last one for which Nelson sat has pride of place; it is by Sir William Beechey. Herkomer painted Sir J. J. Colman, and two mayors are by Opie. The portrait of Sir Harbord Harbord (Lord Suffield) is by Gainsborough. The choir, now known as Blackfriars Hall, was long used by the Dutch settlers in the city, and in it Sir Thomas Browne was knighted by Charles the Second. Bigger than many churches, it has enormous windows and a fine roof with bosses of angels and flowers. Here, too, is a gallery of portraits. Below a brass inscription to Theophilus Ellison, parson to the Dutch community, are photographs of portraits of him and his wife painted by Rembrandt. Theophilus sleeps in the middle of this old choir.

Flickr.

Norwich, St John Maddermarket

I found St John, in the care of the CCT, locked but details of opening times, which I've now forgotten, were on the information board. To me it's unusual to find a CCT church locked but I note that Simon Knott says that it "is regularly open, although perhaps not as often as it might be given its location"*. The interior sounds to be full of interest so a future revisit is on the cards.

* The CCT website says it is open "Tuesdays 12pm-2pm. We additionally try to open Wednesdays 11am -1pm Thursdays & 11am-1pm when possible".

ST JOHN MADDERMARKET, St John Maddermarket. W tower, nave and aisles. The chancel seems to have been demolished already in the C16. Its E window must have been set back to become the E window of the church. It is a sumptuous Dec piece of forms more fantastical than customary in Norfolk. The N aisle E window has cusped intersected tracery, but may not be original. All the rest is Perp. The W tower is squeezed in between houses and has a passage through from N to S. Traceried sound-holes, little figures on the pinnacles. Two-storeyed porches, that on the S with a damaged vault inside, that on the N (now a chapel) with the usual tierceron-star but in addition a circular rib to connect the bosses. The entrance to the N has two sets of suspended shields up one moulding of jambs and arch. The interior is of three bays with slim Perp piers with thin shafts and long wave mouldings diagonally between them. The clerestory has eight windows closely set and is faced extensively with ashlar. Roof with ribbed coving, the rest ceiled. This dates probably from c.1864 (after an explosion). In the N aisle wall-arches. - REREDOS. A sumptuous early c 18 piece with detached columns carrying a tester or canopy. It is said to come from Corton in Suffolk but supposed to have been in St Michael at Coslany originally. - STAINED GLASS. Old fragments in two N windows. - PLATE. Chalice (Norwich) 1566-7; Paten, inscribed 1568 ; Paten, 1705-6; two Flagons, 1715-16; Spoon, 1738-9, all London made. - MONUMENT S. Brasses (under the gallery at the W end) to Walter Moneslee d. 1412 and wife (18 in. figures), John Toddenham c.1450 (16 in. figure), Ralph Segrym d. 1472 and wife (3 ft figures), William Pepyr d. 1476 and wife (28 in. figures), Johanna Caux d. 1506 (28 in. figure), John Terry d. 1524, wife and children, on brackets (25 in. figures), John Marsham d. 1525 and wife (30 in.), Robert Rugge d. 1558 and wife (3 ft ; palimpsest of an early C14 abbot), Nicholas Sottherton d. 1540 (inscription only; palimpsest of a nun of c.1440). - Christopher Sayer d. 1600, Thomas Sotherton d. 1608, both tablets with kneeling figures facing one another across a prayer-desk. In the frame of the former to the l. and r. figures of Pax, Vanitas, Gloria, and Labor (a workman). - Tablet to Walter Nugent Monck d. 1958, founder of the Norwich Players and the Maddermarket Theatre.

A quaint alley becomes a vaulted passage where it runs under the tower of St John’s, Maddermarket, the name reminding us of the days when dye was sold here. By the tower is the fine old timbered Church House now used by Toc H. The clerestoried church itself is 15th century, with some remains of the 14th, and the north aisle is on the site of a church built perhaps in Saxon days. The vault of the north porch has bosses of flowers and heads, and the medieval door into the church has its old hinges. The east end of the nave serves as the chancel, with a painting of the Last Supper for the reredos, under an early Georgian canopy on Corinthian columns. A medley of old glass has roundels with heads and a figure of Edward the Confessor holding a ring.

On the wall under the gallery is the finest display of brasses in Norwich. Rich in detail, and very charming, is the family group of John Terry, mayor in 1523. He and his wife and four children are standing on pedestals which rest on the branches of a tree, about which are growing roses, cornflowers, and bluebells, John in a long robe, the mother in rich attire with a rosary hanging from her girdle held by a clasp of three roses. Walter Noneslee and his wife (1412) are small and worn. A mayor and MP of 1431 is with his wife, he in a belted gown, she in draped headdress. John Todenham of about 1450 is a tiny figure in a tunic. Alderman William Pepyr of 1476 is with his wife in horned headdress. John Marsham, a 16th-century mayor, wears a fur-trimmed gown; his wife in kennel headdress has a gown with fur cuffs and a girdle with a three-rose clasp. Another 16th-century mayor is with his family. Richard Rugge is a sturdy fellow of the 16th century, with his wife in kennel headdress and a girdle tied in a bow. Other brasses are of a woman in kennel headdress, with a rosary and bag; the wife of a 15th-century mayor; and a group of five boys of the 17th century. Three wall monuments of the 16th and 17th century show Nicholas Sotherton and his wife in red gowns and ruffs; Thomas Sotherton in red, his wife in black, and six children; and Christopher Layer with his wife and eight children, and figures representing Labour, Glory, Peace, and Vanity. In 1791 a memorial was put here to Lady Margaret Audley, wife of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who was executed for treason in Elizabeth’s reign. Lady Margaret died at the duke’s great house at Charing Cross, near this church, where she was buried in 1563. The house is gone.

Norwich, St Michael at Plea

St Michael at Plea, redundant and now used as a café [chancel] and Christian bookshop [nave] and because of this most of interest here is the exterior.

ST MICHAEL-AT-PLEA, Queen Street. All Perp. W tower lowered (no bell-openings) but with thick crocketed pinnacles. N and S transepts, S chancel chapel, two-storeyed S porch with niches l. and r. of the entrance, St Michael and the Dragon in its spandrels and a niche between the upper windows. Base frieze of shields in N aisle and N transept. Nave roof arch-braced with embattled wall-plate, longitudinal arched braces, and angels along the ridge. - FONT. Octagonal, simple, with demi-figures of angels against the underside. - FONT COVER. C17. With eight columns, an openwork obelisk in the middle, and a tall top with an obelisk and a dove. - COMMUNION RAIL. Jacobean or a little later. With vertically symmetrical balusters. More of them are re-used in the west GALLERY. - SOUTH DOOR. Excellently traceried. - SWORD AND MACE RESTS. Wrought iron; C18. - PLATE. Chalice given in 1691; two Flagons (Norwich) 1667-8: Almsbasin, inscribed 1694; Paten (London) 1708-9. - MONUMENTS. Jacques de Hem d. 1603. Inscription in black-letter and, to its r., panel of the same size with kneeling figures incised, a pediment over the whole with shovel, pick, skull, cross-bones. The odd thing is that the monument is folded round an obtuse angle at the W wall.

The fact that the Archdeacon holds his courts in the 15th-century church in Queen Street has lengthened its name to St Michael-at-Plea. Its low tower has battlements and leafy pinnacles, and its porch is adorned with niches, the spandrels of the entrance arch having worn carvings of St Michael fighting the dragon. The old door into the church has rich tracery. There are golden-winged angels holding shields on the ridge of the fine 15th-century roof, and the medieval font has a quaint canopied Jacobean cover with a dove perched on the top. There are shields and saints in a medley of old glass, and a stone on the wall is engraved with portraits of an Elizabethan family, parents and ten children, kneeling at an altar. The treasure here is a number of fine panel paintings of the 14th century, said to be part of the old rood screen. Seven now in the reredos are of the Annunciation, the Betrayal, two Crucifixions, St Thomas, Erasmus, and St Margaret standing on a dragon. One showing the Resurrection is in a recess over the pulpit.

Flickr.

Norwich, Carnary Chapel

Including the Carnary Chapel, which I found open last week but locked when I first visited the cathedral in 2015, in its own right as a church visit is a bit of a con but I'm doing it anyway!

The premises lie within the precinct, just W of the cathedral and N and NE of the Erpingham Gate. The College was founded by Bishop Salmon in 1316. The chapel is an extremely fine piece of that date, oblong and with polygonal angle-turrets at the SW and SE angles. It is distinguished by its spacious undercroft, with large, circular, beautifully cusped windows. The undercroft itself is of twice four bays with heavy piers of shallow chamfered projections and thick single-chamfered ribs dying into them. The upper chapel is lofty and has Perp N and S windows (and a shapeless E window) but the fine shafting and fine small leaf capitals of the founder’s time (cf. E window of Bishop Reynolds’s Chapel). There are also hood-moulds on head stops. Piscina with buttresses and a crocketed gable, again with leaf capitals. Doorway from the W, also with leaf capitals. Hood-mould with extremely delicate seated figures. Stoup with crocketed gable to its r. The staircase up to this doorway, which is the most distinctive feature of the group of buildings, was altered by Bishop Lyhart to connect the college with the chapel. Bishop Lyhart’s staircase, turning through 90 degrees at an intermediate landing, has an irregular rib-vault, but at its upper end, to allow for the early C14 doorway into the hall, the rib-vault suddenly turns up vertical and continues in relief as a wall facing the doorway. The DOOR is original early C14 work, including its beautiful iron hinges and decoration.

At one end of the Close is a bronze statue of Wellington with his sword; at the other Nelson stands with his telescope, sculptured in marble, looking to his old grammar school just within the Erpingham Gate. Founded as a chapel in 1316, and converted to a school by Edward the Sixth, the fine little building is now the school chapel, keeping its old trussed roof, the gallery with balusters, and the big windows adorned with an array of men and women with golden hair, some hooded, some wimpled, some in netted headdress. The old vaulted crypt (once a charnel house) is now the school’s library, and in it are several old chairs and a quaint list of school regulations. Quaint, too, is the porch added in the 15th century; at the top of its steps we can touch the bosses of its vaulted roof, and from it another flight of steps leads to the splendid old door of the chapel, charming with its old hinges of scrolls and leaves and its rich boss with an iron ring. George Borrow came to this school, and that Lord Justice Coke who hounded Raleigh to his doom.

Flickr.

Norwich, St George Tombland

I found St George Tombland locked but with a notice advising of, if I remember correctly, summer opening hours - this is a shame as it sounds like it's an interesting interior.

ST GEORGE TOMBLAND. Several legacies for the building of the tower in 1445. Repair of the tower 1645. It has a niche below the W window, and traceried sound-holes. The flushwork decoration of the battlements with big lozenges and shields might well be C17. Two-storeyed S porch. Parapet with flushwork quatrefoils. Tierceron-star-vault inside with a boss of St George in the centre. Two-storeyed N porch with the N aisle attached to its E. Plainer vault, without tiercerons, though with ridge ribs. In the N one window with Dec motifs, framed by two Perp ones. Yet they belong to the same build.Coarse arcades with octagonal piers and triple-chamfered arches. The one-bay N chapel has a four-centred arch. - FONT. Octagonal, C13, of Purbeck marble, with two shallow arches to each side. - FONT COVER.  Jacobean or later. Eight columns and an openwork obelisk in the middle. - REREDOS and chancel PANELLING. Good early C18, with an open segmental pediment on Corinthian columns. - PULPIT. C18 with panels of lively shape and a big tester. - COMMUNION RAIL. With slender twisted balusters. - SWORD AND MACE RESTS. Wrought iron; C18. - SCULPTURE. Relief of St George, German (?), c.1530. - Statuette of St George on horseback, on the font cover; Baroque. - PLATE. Large set, made in London, 1750-1. - Also, from St Simon and St. Jude, Chalice 1632-3 and Paten 1634-5, both made in Norwich. - MONUMENTS. Alderman Anguish, by Nicholas Stone, 1617, but not of special interest. The usual composition with kneeling figures facing one another. - Mary Gardiner d. 1748. A cherub stands and lifts a cloth off a portrait medallion. Obelisk background. The corbels are placed diagonally. - Thomas Maltby d. 1760. Cherub in front of an obelisk. - Many more tablets.

St George’s church stands at a corner of Tombland, now a tree-shaded space facing the cathedral gates but once the Danish market-place, moved by the Normans to its present site. St George’s is chiefly 15th century, with remains of an earlier building. It has a fine clock tower, a clerestory of patterned brickwork, a south porch with carved bosses in its vaulted roof (the middle one showing St George standing on a dragon), and a north porch serving as a children’s chapel. Over the doorway is an old coloured panel with St George fighting the dragon by a castle, the princess clasping her hands at prayer. There is old woodwork in the 15th-century roof of the chancel (with 12 angels supporting its shafts), an old roof of the nave with carved borders, and a splendid Jacobean pulpit with a star inlaid in its great canopy. The cover of the font is 17th century; the font itself is perhaps 700 years old. There are roundels of old glass, small panels of 17th-century glass, and an old chest. A tiny wall monument of 1609 has coloured figures of John Symonds and his wife in ruffs, she wearing a black dress and hood; John left two shillings a week for ever to the poor. The organ hides the monument of William Anguish of 1668, where he kneels with his wife and seven children.

Norwich, St Peter Hungate

St Peter Hungate, I found it locked but the information board says that it's open Fri/Sat 10am-4pm and Sun 2-4pm or for group visits by appointment, is in the care of the Norwich Historic Churches Trust. As noted when I visited the Cathedral I don't have Pevsner for Norwich so here's some information from their website:

The latest acquisition by the Trust, this church was declared redundant in 1936, and was the first church nationally to be repurposed.

It became a very popular museum of church art, which closed in 1995. After a period of private occupation, it passed to the Trust in 2006. Since 2009, it has been the home of Hungate Medieval Art – an exhibition space celebrating Norwich’s medieval heritage and art.

Much had been done by the City Corporation (later, Council) to make it weathertight, but the chancel roof needed major repairs in 2016.

For more details here is a link to Simon Knott's Norfolk Churches entry.

I've now got Pevsner:

ST PETER HUNGATE MUSEUM, Elm Hill. Unbuttressed W tower with low pyramid roof. Two-storeyed S porch. Nave and transepts with tall four-light windows. In the nave they are in wall-arcading. The date 1460 appears on a buttress of the porch. The most interesting thing about the church is the roof, with hammerbeams and arched braces. They are set diagonally in the crossing so as to intersect. - FONT. Octagonal, simple, with quatrefoils on the bowl. - STAINED GLASS. Much in the E window, also whole figures of the late C15 and early C16. A mosaic of bits in the chancel S windows, fragments in the chancel N. - PLATE. Chalice and Cover, Norwich made, richly embossed, c.1620; Paten (Norwich) inscribed I675; two Flagons (London) 1680-1; Almsbasin (London) 1680 (?); Cup and Cover (London) 1734-5; Paten (London) 1735—6.*

* The exhibits of ecclesiastical art from Norfolk churches are of course not included in this list of furnishings.

St Peter Hungate church is at the top of Elm Hill, a narrow cobbled street with old houses, overhanging storeys, gables, and dormers. It is a charming peep of old Norwich. The church is a rare gem with an ancient story, and is unique for the new lease of life that has come to it. It has made history in our time, for, in becoming a museum for treasures of church art, it is the first example since the Reformation of an Anglican church put to secular use.

The ancient church was restored and partly rebuilt in the 15th century by John Paston and Dame Margaret his wife. Engraved on a buttress by the north door is a curious pictorial record of their making a new church out of the old, showing a leafy branch growing from the foot of a barren tree trunk on which are three crosses of the Trinity, and the date 1460.

Wearing a tiled cap in place of its vanished belfry storey. the low tower stands at the west end of a simple cross. The porch has an upper room. The walls inside are gleaming white, and some of the windows have beautiful glass of the 15th and 16th centuries. Some of the oldest is in the tracery of the west window, showing Our Lord, the Madonna, and musical angels. The east window is striking with its strips of old glass, rich and bright, showing over a dozen figures. In the tracery are angels with scrolls, a king, and a patriarch. There are two fine doors with medieval tracery, two tiny peepholes from the nave to the chapels, and a 15th-century font. But the crowning glory of this little place is the beautiful 15th-century nave roof with its richly moulded timbers, oak angels on the hammerbeams, angel corbels, and at the crossing a central boss carved with three figures.

As its congregation slipped away with the destruction of many old houses round about it, St Peter Hungate became one of the unwanted churches, and the splendid idea of using it as a casket for sacred and historic things was carried out in 1933. We found here a collection of musical instruments to which our grandparents sang hymns and psalms - including fiddles, flutes, and a hand organ; a fine collection of church plate; medieval carving in poppyheads and fragments of screenwork and arches; four charming tabernacle doors, with the daintiest of tracery; a silver cross adorned with amethysts and a ball of Blue John; illuminated manuscripts including Wycliffe’s Bible of 1380; and three lovely Books of Hours in brilliant colour, one French and one Flemish of the 15th century, the third East Anglian and a century older.