St Mary & All Saints' Church, Church Street, Little Walsingham, Norfolk, NR22 6BH
Posted by: 
greysman
N 52° 53.469 E 000° 52.499
31U E 357039 N 5862276
This parish church dates from the C14th and C15th but was gutted by fire on 14th July, 1961, and rebuilt by 1964.
Waymark Code: WMVC9M
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/31/2017
Views: 0
This parish church dates from the C14th and C15th but was gutted by fire on 14th July, 1961, only the tower and lower parts of the walls, the font, some memorial brasses and north porch remaining. The rest of the church has been restored, Laurence King was the architect, with a new nave roof and new arcades and is now Grade I listed. Built of flint with stone dressings it comprises a nave, a chancel, north and south aisles, north and south transepts, a west tower with lead needle spire and porch, and a C15th two-storeyed and vaulted south porch. There are new and restored Perpendicular windows, the east window by John Hayward. The fire also destroyed several C15th screens.
The west tower contains a ring of six bells hung to enable ringing in the English style. The heaviest five are all old, C16th and C17th, with a treble added in 1987 to make a good going ring. The bells are rung from a ringing room up a spiral stair leading from the open area at the base of the tower.
The very good font, C15th, is on steps at the west end of the nave with the Seven Sacraments and the Crucifixion on the bowl. Considered so good that a replica was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1861. Confirmation faces east, then anti-clockwise are Baptism (NE), Ordination (N), Matrimony (NW), The Crucifixion - the odd panel out (W), Last Rites (SW), Confession (S) and Mass (SE). The C17th font cover was destroyed in the fire, we now have a cover which is the 1964 work of Hayward.
A fine memorial to Sir Henry Sydney, d.1612, and his wife has been moved from the north chapel to the west end of the north aisle and is rather hidden by a coffee servery table.
Words from British Listed Buildings, Simon Knott's Norfolk Churches, and Pevsner's Norfolk 1 Buildings with amendments from own on site observations.
Coordinates are for the west porch entrance.