One of the best of the small town churches in Norfolk, this parish church is now Grade I listed. Of the normal plan, west tower, nave, north and south aisles, north and south transepts, a south porch, and chancel, it is of C14th and C15th build on the site of a C13th church with C18th and C19th alterations and restorations. Built of flint, Barnack stone and some brick it has lead roofs. There was a small restoration in 1848-51 and a much larger one in 1876 and 1888-95 by one William Milne.
The two-stage tower was begun in 1485, paid for by bequests, and completed 1507-10 by Master Gyles, roofed in 1510 and the bell-frame installed in 1515. It has set-back stepped buttresses, a base frieze of roundels containing 'roule tournant' and shields, crossed keys and crossed swords, which must once have been painted, and arched west doorway with multiple mouldings flanked either side by a nodding ogee niche below a statuary niche. The five-light Perpendicular west window is flanked by one tall canopied statuary niche right and left set at an angle. The three-light belfry openings have Perpendicular tracery. The openwork battlements were added in 1533 with corner pinnacles, angels as intermediate pinnacles, and the Gothick lantern and lead spike of 1778 by John Frost was rebuilt in 1897, replacing an earlier one of 1511. The tower now contains a ring of eight bells cast in the C17th and C18th. If the Protestant Reformation had been some twenty or so years earlier we may not have such a glorious structure.
The north and south aisles have three-light Perpendicular windows, the north aisle wall rebuilt in 1462 at the expense of John Chapman. The south side with a flint porch is entered through C20th doors within a moulded two-centred arch under a square hood, in the spandrels of which are blind tracery motifs with split cusps and shields. The gable has pinnacles and the hammerbeam roof within the porch is of c1518 donated by William Coo. It has three bays and the roof with carved angels against the hammerbeams and doubled back-to-back tiny angels as ridge bosses. The south aisle west window has reticulated tracery. The north aisle has an early C14th blocked north doorway at its west end, and a blocked mid-C14th doorway at its east end, probably for a chapel. There are thirteen 3-light clerestory windows with Perpendicular tracery under basket arches, on the north side with a brick crenellated parapet. The north transept is lit through a four-light C19th north window (restored in 1848-51), and has stepped side buttresses. The south transept has a Decorated three-light east window and a four-light Perpendicular south window, also stepped side buttresses. Between the chancel and the north transept is a two-storey vestry with a library on the upper floor. The chancel has one three-light Perpendicular north window, a five-light Curvilinear east window of 1853, two three-light Perpendicular south windows, and diagonal corner buttresses. The chancel was constructed in the mid-C15th. The south aisle has a projection for the chapel of Corpus Christi, built c1490-1500 and lit by a large four-light Perpendicular window.
The interior is a seven-bay arcade, the piers of quatrefoil section standing on circular bases and with circular capitals, typically early C14th, except for the two west bays which were constructed with the tower and having polygonal bases and capitals, it seems as though the original church was early C14th and extended two bays westward and given a high clerestory in the C15th. The bay arches are double hollow-chamfered with the tower arch wave- and hollow-moulded. The springers for a fan vault remain to the lower stage of the tower, this never completed after a change of plan. There is a baluster screen to the tower gallery with twisted and turned balusters, of c1700. The aisle windows and doors are within tall wall arches.
The nave roof is a fourteen-bay early C16th oak double hammerbeam with moulded wall posts on angel corbels. There are two tiers of hammerbeams, each with a carved wooden angel with outspread wings bearing shields, the lower hammerbeams having traceried spandrels. The brattished and moulded ashlaring is in two tiers and with carved decoration, the moulded cambered collars with cresting and ridge struts are faced by carved angels, in all 192 angels carved from chestnut wood. When restored they were found to contain lead shot, a relic of the shooting parties hoping to rid the church of nesting birds.
There are arches from the transepts to the aisles and chancel with a free-standing chancel arch of similar section to the nave arcade. There is a large, tall passage-squint from the north transept to the chapel, this also gives access to the vestry. The chancel roof is of C16th, a six-bay arch-braced roof with one tier of moulded butt purlins.
The octagonal font is of Caen stone made in 1851, it is placed at the west end of the nave just in front of the tower arch, south side. It's a fairly simple design with nodding ogee arches on the stem and the eight bowl panels filled with quatrefoils and placed on a single step plinth with a raised step at the rear for the officiant. The seating is also of 1851 except for two late C15th chancel stalls: that to the north has two carved figure scenes depicting a woman holding a rosary or counting beads, first in a shop and then looking out of the door, that to the south two figures of men with backpacks above a chained and muzzled dog, are these the shopkeeper and 'The Pedlar of Swaffham' referred to in the legend.
There are several memorials in the church including an altar tomb against the north chancel wall to John Botewright, d.1474, Chaplain to Henry VI and Master of Corpus Christi College, and who funded the rebuilding of the church in 1454. In the C19th restoration his canopy was lowered and the jagged cusping comes down to just above his body making it look like the tomb was in the process of devouring him, it's also missing the angel supporters. The tomb chest has four shields bearing symbols of the Passion, Trinity and Botewright's rebus, three boats and three augers, ie. a boatwright; A reclining effigy in clerical dress; A cusped mid C16th canopy with tracery daggers in the spandrels and a brattished cornice; A wall monument to Katherine Steward, d.1590, Oliver Cromwell’s maternal grandmother now kneeing in the south aisle chapel and holding a huge hideous skull in her hands within a surround of a pair of true Roman Doric columns supporting a strapwork achievement in which is the profile representation of the deceased kneeling in prayer, with an inscription panel below; A brass to Sir John Audley, c1530, on the south transept pier; A carving of John Chapman, former churchwarden, the Pedlar. In the legend, John Chapman hoped to make his fortune in London but when there is told by a shopkeeper that his fortune is actually in Swaffham under a tree, he returned home to find it so and gives it to provide the church with a north aisle and the magnificent tower. The upper lights of the north aisle are now filled with figures in 15th Century glass, some of which are angels, but some of which are clearly donors, with more medieval panels in the west window.
The best-known glass in the church, however, is in the south transept, the former chapel of the guild of Corpus Christi. This is now the WWI memorial, and its main feature is a large window by Morris & Co. The four main figures are St George, St Martin, St Michael and the Blessed Virgin, but perhaps more interesting are the smaller panels at the bottom, which depict the fighting at Zeebrugge, Jerusalem and Mons, and a scene inside a field hospital. The archangel Michael is shown above the scene of Mons, on the Western Front, where it was widely believed at the time that a host of angels had led the British troops into battle.
Words from British Listed Buildings, Simon Knott's Churches of East Anglia, and Pevsner's Norfolk 2 Buildings with amendments from own on site observations.