This parish church, Grade I listed, is medieval and later, built in flint with ashlar and some brick dressings it has slate coverings on the roofs. It is on the same site as a Saxon church and some of the building material is reused. Consisting of a south-west tower porch, an aisled nave, and a chancel. The C14th tower porch has diagonal buttresses and a rectangular stair turret to the north-west. The porch entrance is a massive plain chamfered, two-centred arch on polygonal responds, the church doorway arch being of filletted rolls on two pairs of nook shafts with an elaborately cusped niche above it. On the south face is a rectangular loop to the upper floor, and on all sides above the upper string course are plain two-light Y-traceried bell-openings with a corbel table and crenellated parapet above.
The clock face is on the east face of the tower and has been recently repaired and painted blue it is octagonal with the points of the octagon north-south. The outer ring with hour and minute marks, the Roman numerals, and the metal hands are all painted gold colour. For further information on the clock see Waymark WMRVNP.
The hours are struck on the no.2 bell which is of good tone. The no.1 bell was recast in about 1940 from the old Brasyer bell (see below) and is now inscribed to “Audrey, Daughter of J.G. Haggard RN, Died at Sea, Feb 6th 1933, Age 37, Father Forgive Them" but there is some inscription around the crown, it is possible that the founders took a copy of the original inscription and replicated it on the new bell. There is one rope and sally appearing through the visible floor of the tower, this is the floor of the clock room and it is from here that the bells are now rung, they used to be rung from the floor of the tower but the local youths had great fun ringing the bells for a lark.
When John L'Estrange, 1836-1877, wrote "The church bells of Norfolk : where, when, and by whom they were made, with the inscriptions on all the bells in the county" in 1874 he says of West Bradenham:
Bradenham, West, S. Andrew-—2.[bells],
1. +Virginis Egregie Vocor Campana Marie.
2. John Draper made me 1625, [Diameter 37 in.]
On the crown of 1, three shields : Brasyer diapered. The initial cross
and the words Virginis and Marie have been cut off.
There were three bells here 6th Edward VI. and also when Blomefield wrote.[see below]
The lost one appears to have been the treble.
Approximate translation of the inscription on bell 1; [This] Bell [is] called [after] the excellent Virgin Mary. It was cast by Brasyer of the Norwich foundry. The date is unsure, but probably c1400, as the 'Brasyer diapered' mark was used by founders after the Brasyer family were no longer in charge.
The second bell was cast by John Draper who was casting bells at Thetford between 1600 and 1644.
Francis Blomefield, 'Hundred of South Greenhoe: West-Bradenham', in An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 6 (London, 1807), pp. 142-147.
Current information by Robin Loveday, churchwarden at Bradenham.