This Grade II* listed estate church seems larger than it is, set on a mound to the south of the main A149 road in the Holkham Hall estate grounds it is very impressive when seen for the first time: the dedication of St Withburga is said to be unique. The mound is entirely sand and is thought to be a dune although the sea is some 1ml to the north, and it is said to have been used by Iron Age people, perhaps for burials or a temple.
The C13th tower on the south side is a tower porch this being the main entrance but is at the western end of the south aisle and replaces an earlier, possibly Saxon or Norman, tower which was at the west end of the nave, the foundations were found at the restoration. There is a core of a medieval building but it was extensively rebuilt in 1767 and again in 1868-71 by James K Colling. This latter rebuilding was paid for by Juliana, Countess of Leicester, but sadly she died in 1870 just as it was completed. Her simple effigy lies in the bare north aisle chapel.
Built in flint with limestone dressings the church is Grade II* listed. It has plain tiled roofs to the nave and chancel. There are flushwork panels in the parapets of the tower, the chancel and the aisles. The tower has set-back buttresses up to the first stage and two early C13th lancet windows in the south face, one lancet low down on the east face gives some light to the balustraded staircase to the ringing chamber, the bell openings have 'Y' tracery from the C14th. A C19th south door in the tower with double opening and quatrefoiled spandrel opens into a large porch with the main door into the church opposite and possibly of C13th. The embattled parapet has corner pinnacles.
Windows and doorways in the church are a mix of Decorated and Perpendicular styles, from the C13th the two-light west window in the south aisle, Decorated with a reticulation unit, and two Perpendicular C14th two light windows in the south aisle chapel. All other windows, including the south chancel aisle window, the three-light west window, with a Decorated door below, and the east window of five lights, date from the C19th restoration.
The interior, of four bay arcades, have octagonal piers, probably late C14th with quatrefoil piers to
the two easternmost bays. There is a chapel with a parclose screen at the east end of the north aisle. The roofs are C19th arch-braced collars with short wall posts on corbels. In the floor at the west end of the nave are four C12th or C13th coffin lids. Two early C17th monuments from the workshop of Nicholas Stone and by Robert Pook are; Miles Armiger, 1639, with good kneeling alabaster figure on the south wall of the south chapel; John and Meriall Coke, 1636, and their family with three pairs of kneeling figures, on the east wall of the south chapel. In the north aisle chapel a fine alabaster reclining ligate on tomb chest by Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm to Juliana, Countess of Leicester, d.1870.
Church services are at 0900 on the first Sunday, Eucharist, and at 1030 on every second and fourth Sunday, Matins. In Church from Easter to Remembrance Sunday and in the Chapel of Holkham Hall for the rest of the year.
Words from British Listed Buildings and Pevsner's Norfolk 2 Buildings with amendments from own on site observations.
Coordinates are for the south porch entrance.