We weren’t very adventurous this spring, staying close to home and taking things easy, so there wasn’t too much to blog about.
A visit to St Michael’s church on the first mild spring day in March
We admired the ‘Narnia’ lamp post by the gate.
We were unable to tell the time as the sun failed to shine.
The peaceful churchyard.
Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris ) The flowers are in the centre of the bloom and have no petals. The 5 – 8 petal-like sepals are bright shiny yellow.
Peacock butterfly (Inachis io) It was very sluggish and was still in the grass outside the church when we came out again.
A pair of Greylags (Anser anser) took up residence in our garden as they usually do each spring
We enjoy their company.
They constructed a nest on the island in the middle of the big pond but after ten days it was abandoned. Feathers were spread everywhere. We don’t know what happened but we suspect an otter or an American mink was to blame.
The abandoned nest.
After we lost our summerhouse in the storm earlier this year we spent some time clearing the area behind it and discovered this tree with the deformed trunk. What could have caused this?
We enjoy seeing all the birds that visit our garden including the Pied Wagtails (Motacilla alba). Not a good shot as the bird hurried into the dappled shade just as I took its picture.
A sunset seen from the back of the house.
On a visit to our church at Rumburgh we saw this Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) resting in the shade of a gravestone.
Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the churchyard
I love the informality of our country churchyards and I like to see the wild flowers there. The wild flowers are just as much God’s work as any garden flower or exotic bloom. They have a haven in our churchyards and should be safe from herbicides.
Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis)
Richard on his way to church
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Meanwhile, back in my garden…..
My Pieris with its new leaves of red and its little white bell flowers
I have been growing these hyacinth bulblets on in shallow tubs and they are now ready for planting out in the garden to flower next spring.
Scented narcissi and pink aubretia
Elinor gave me some more aubretia, a mauve variety, as a gift on Mothering Sunday
Lathyrus and scilla
Pasque flowers. These began flowering just a couple of days after Easter Sunday.
I had a large patch of these red saxifrage but the deer scraped most of them up. I’m hoping they will spread again.
This large church is close to Hay Hill where my last Norwich post came from. It is the largest of the thirty-one Church of England churches in Norwich and is often mistaken for one of the two cathedrals.
The building was begun in 1430 and was consecrated in 1455, a twenty-five year single phase of construction which gives the church its unity of style. There have been only a few additions to the exterior of the building since then, notably the little spire on top of the tower (a fleche), the parapet round the top of the tower and the ‘pepperpots’ on the corners added by the architect A E Street in 1895.
St Peter Mancroft before the Victorian additions to the tower.
St Peter Mancroft Church. Beyond it on the left of the photo you can see The Guildhall featured in a recent post of mine.
This church wasn’t the first to be built on this site. One of William the Conqueror’s barons, Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norwich, had had a church built there in 1075 but shortly afterwards he lost everything he had after rebelling against the Conqueror. Fortunately he had already bestowed the church on one of his chaplains, Wala, who fled to Gloucester after the rebellion. Wala passed the church on to the Abbey of St Peter in Gloucester and so for 300 years this church was known as ‘St Peter of Gloucester in Norwich’ – quite a mouthful! After pressure from the citizens of Norwich in 1388, the church was passed to the Benedictine Community of St-Mary-in-the-Fields in Norwich whose church (long since destroyed) was where the Assembly Room and the Theatre Royal are now. The Dean and Chapter of St Mary’s found the old church dilapidated and in very poor condition and so decided to re-build. It took them 42 years to save enough money through gifts, legacies and donations to be able to start the construction work.
Norwich Castle can be seen beyond St Peter Mancroft church
St Peter Mancroft on the right and the Forum ahead
St Peter Mancroft
I include here a link to an aerial map of St Peter Mancroft (marked in purple).
During the Reformation the College of St-Mary-in-the-Field was suppressed and the patronage of St Peter Mancroft was passed through several families until 1581 when it was acquired by trustees on behalf of the parishioners. The church was originally the church of St Peter and St Paul but the name was shortened to St Peter after the two saints were given independent saints days during the Reformation. ‘Mancroft’ probably came from the ‘Magna Crofta’ (great meadow) on which it was built.
St Peter Mancroft – the tower is 146′ high
The church is almost completely faced with limestone which was brought many miles over land and sea at great expense. (There is no local free-stone in Norfolk). It was a deliberate display of wealth on the part of the 15th century citizens of Norwich. There is some knapped flint flushwork decoration most notably on the tower which is well buttressed and was probably intended to carry another lantern stage The tower also carries a peal of 14 bells.
There are two fine porches to the church on the north and south sides. The North Porch has a parvaise (a room over the porch).
This is a view of the interior of the church from the back looking towards the East window.
It is 60′ from floor to roof and has eight arched bays with slender columns. The church is also very long at 180′.
The Crib was about 5′ tall and 5′ wide. I could have got into it easily – if I had so wished!
Richard, Elinor and I visited the church on a very rainy day last week. Amazingly, the church was warm inside! Even the cathedral doesn’t get as cosy as St Peter Mancroft.
Font and Font Canopy in the Baptistery
The font was a gift to the church in 1463 by John Cawston, a grocer from Norwich. The Seven Sacraments were carved on panels round the font basin and an eighth panel showed the ‘Sun in Splendour’, the badge of Henry IV. Eight saints were carved on the shaft of the font. Sadly, the Puritans hacked off all the images, plastered the font with lime and daubed it with black paint. It was found in the crypt with other rubbish in 1926 and was cleaned and put in its present position. The four pillars and the base of the canopy over the font were made in the 15th century but the upper part of the woodwork is 19th century Victorian work.
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I apologise for the poor quality of the photos in the slideshow but all of the objects were in glass cases in the St Nicholas Chapel. These objects are just a few of the many treasures owned by the church and known as the Mancroft Heritage.
The Jesus Chapel.
This chapel is normally used for weekday services.
The tomb of Francis Windham, Recorder of Norwich in the reign of Elizabeth I
The Chancel or Choir
The Reredos (the panel behind the High Altar) has some beautiful carved figures made in 1885 and gilded in 1930 to mark the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the building of the church. At the same time the lower line of larger figures were added by Sir Ninian Comper.
The Chancel roof
This roof (and the roof of the Nave) is of open timbered construction supported by hammer beams. Most hammer beam roofs are ornamented and uncovered but this one is covered by fan tracery or vaulting in wood. Most fan traceries are made from stone so this roof is very rare. It is also an angel roof – there is a single row of small angels on either side of the Nave roof but a double row on either side of the Chancel. There are also gilded suns in splendour on the ridge bosses. The roof was restored in 1962 -64. Some amazing work was done then by the restorers who raised the roof on jacks and then pulled the walls straight which had been driven outwards by the weight of the roof over the centuries.
Here is the memorial to Sir Thomas Browne, the subject of my previous Norwich post
I have discovered a quote of Sir Thomas Browne’s from his treatise ‘Urn-Burial’ at the beginning of Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’.
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The most memorable sight in the church is that of the Great East Window.
The East Window
It has 39 tracery lights (windows/panes of glass) and 42 main lights, all of which are 15th century except seven main lights which are Victorian. The Victorian ones are the lower five in the centre colomn and the two bottom ones either side of the centre colomn. This window contains some of the finest work by the 15th century School of Norwich Glass Painters. Most of the church would have originally been full of glass like this but during rioting between Puritans and Royalists in 1648 there was a gunpowder explosion nearby in a house in Bethel Street which left many people dead and much of the glass in the church blown in. It wasn’t until four years later that the glass was gathered together from around the church and most put into this window.
Please click on this link to see each light in detail.
I am obliged and indebted to the Church Guide I purchased in St Peter Mancroft for some of the information in this post.
I am indebted to our Rector the Rev. Richard Thornburgh for the use of his Notes on the church of St Peter South Elmham. A leaflet we bought when we visited the church.
Richard and I went to church at St Peter South Elmham on the 12th April. It was a lovely spring day and the primroses on the bank outside the church were glorious! We decided that, as it was such a nice day, we would walk back to the church in the afternoon and try to get there across the fields instead of along the lanes. We had travelled there by car in the morning.
We set off on the same route across the fields that we usually use and were pleased to see that the ground was dry and virtually mud free.
Dried grass in the field.
Our goal; St Peters church across the fields. You can just see it behind the trees on the horizon.
We have been having to put up with almost continuous road repairs to our lanes for the past two or three months. The repairs are desperately needed but the long diversions to get past them have been very inconvenient. This was a strange place for this sign to be. It was half way along a very narrow lane with no other lanes turning off it. It would have confused a stranger!
Richard walking across the field at the valley bottom. The paths are so clearly marked in the fields. So many people have used these paths over the centuries that the ground is indented and the grass grows differently.
The Beck, our local stream, at the corner of the field; with blackthorn blossom.
Another view of St Peters church
The water in the Beck was beautifully clear.
Such a beautiful glossy horse in a field we walked past.
This bridge over the Beck at the bottom of the hill in St Peter’s village has been rebuilt many times. You can just about see the couple of patches of red brick.
St Michael’s church in the village of St Michael can be seen from the bottom of the hill in St Peter’s village. Almost all our village churches in ‘The Saints’ are within very short distances of each other.
The view up the hill to St Peters church
Looking back down the hill from the church to where the bridge is.
St Peter’s churchyard
This is believed to be the base and part of the Preaching Cross which once stood at the nearby road junction.
The 14th century porch which has very worn carved faces (headstops) on the outer arch. Richard is inside reading notices on the notice-board. The door into the church from inside the porch, that Richard is standing in front of, is much older than the porch. It is early Norman – late 11th or 12th century.
The stoup recess inside the porch. This would have contained a bowl of Holy Water.
The window in the tower.
The beautifully carved Rood screen and the chancel.
I was sorry not to be able to get a better photo of the Rood screen as it is quite lovely. I would have had to light the church properly so that the sunlight from the windows wasn’t causing the Rood Screen to be in silhouette. The screen isn’t all that old. It was presented to the church by the Adair family from Flixton Hall in 1923.
You can see the socket holes in the arch above the screen into which the original screen and tympanum were fitted. The originals were probably destroyed during the time of the Commonwealth.
The nave has a beautiful timber roof.
18th century pulpit.
The altar, the modern oak reredos behind the altar and the east window.
Carving in stone and wood
Carving in stone and wood
A list of the names of all the Rectors of St Peter’s church from the 14th century to the 19th century and their patrons.
The harmonium
Ancient door
This is the 15th century font with a typically East Anglican lion design. There are four lions round the shaft and angel faces with crossed hands above them. Above the angels are Tudor rose designs and blank shields. The font cover is 17th century work. Please ignore the decorative red bucket under the pew! I didn’t notice it when I took the photo.
Part of tomb panel
There used to be a Lady Chapel, built in the late 14th or 15th century, on the north side of the church. In the chapel, John Tasburgh Esq. and his wife Margery, owners of the land on which the church was built, were buried. The tomb panel pictured above (one of two) is all that is left of their tombs, and therefore all that’s left of the Lady Chapel which was desecrated during the Commonwealth years. By 1830 the chapel was in a terribly dilapidated state, the tombs had been dismantled and the panels used as the base for the new north wall. The panels extend for about another foot below ground level. The last of the chapel was demolished in the 1840’s.
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South side of the church
The tower
The east window
By the time we left the church it had become very windy and we really struggled in our walk home.
I thought at first I had found some wild strawberries, but on closer inspection I realised that this is a Barren Strawberry plant.
Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis)
The petals of the Barren Strawberry are widely spaced and the fruits are dry and papery. The terminal tooth of the end leaflet ( the plant is trifoliate like a strawberry plant) is shorter than the adjacent ones.
