This late C12th parish church is Grade I listed, the nave and chancel are from this date, the west tower is late C13th and C14th with a spire dated 1428. The nave and chancel aisles were remodelled in the C15th with battlements added 1523-1525. It is built of barnack stone and partly rendered and belongs to a group of fenland churches with very long naves built on land reclaimed from the sea.
The four-stage C13th tower has big polygonal buttresses developing into polygonal corner turrets which terminate above the crenellated parapet in crocketted pinnacles. The upper stages and short recessed stone spire are referred to in bequests dated 1428. The west doorway, Decorated, is of four orders of undercut mouldings below an ogeed hood. The west window of three pointed lancets, each separated by pilaster strips. The is similar fenestration to the north and south but with a blind central light. The two-light ogeed reticulated ringing chamber windows and two-light belfry windows are of mouchette form. String courses divide the storeys and the octagonal spire has gabled lucarnes at the base on alternate facets. There is a ring of six bells in the tower hung so as to enable ringing in the English style. The lighter four of the six are C18th bells, the two heaviest are modern replacements.
There are stepped buttresses to the nave which is continuous with the chancel. The south aisle has one five-light square-headed window and one three-light arched Perpendicular window west of the south porch. East of the porch are six straight-headed windows of three or four cusped lights in a run to the chancel east end. To act as a support for the leaning south wall are two sloping brick C18th buttresses set at intervals. The nave and chancel aisles are parapeted with the south clerestory windows run as follows from the west : first an encircled quatrefoil, two two-light square headed windows, then three three-light depressed arched C15th windows, finally in the chancel three three-light square-headed windows.
The gabled south porch has stepped side buttresses, an arched outer door, blocked triangular-headed side windows to north and south. The late C13th inner doorway has columns supporting naturalistic foliage carving.
The east ends of the aisles are without windows and two flat clasping buttresses of C12th, Norman, date frame the five-light transomed C15th east window. There are diagonal buttresses at the aisles and flat stepped north buttresses. In the north aisle are two eastern windows of three-lights and cusped early Perpendicular tracery. These are separated by large sloping C18th brick buttress also, as to the south, to support the sloping wall. The remainder of the aisle is of three-light arched panel tracery windows.
The early C14th north door is below a plain two-light square-headed window. It has a clerestory of two-light square headed form.
INTERIOR.
The C13th tower is connected to the nave by one wide C13th bay with a double chamfered arch. The tower arch is of quatrefoil piers with moulded circular bases and capitals supporting the arch of two hollow chamfers separated by a roll. The west door arch is stilted . There are two roll-moulded stairway arches in the thickness of the western buttresses. The west window lights are shafted on the interior with a wall passage. The ringing chamber floor survives but ringing now takes place from the ground floor.
The late C12th seven-bay arcade (extending two bays into chancel) is rare in Norfolk and is of drum piers on water-holding bases with a range of waterleaf, stiff-leaf, scalloped and crocket capitals supporting rebated semi-circular arches.
The remarkable late C15th unretored nave hammerbeam roof, which was probably pre-fabricated in Suffolk and arrived here by barge, has two registers of hammers. Alternate trusses drop on wall posts to corbels in the form of angels bearing scrolls. These angels are immediately below statues of prophets in canopied niches. Curved arched braces rise to the wall plate. Secondary trusses have hammer beams carved as angels with open books, the main trusses having angels bearing tablets. The upper, false, hammer beams are complete with a flight of winged angels bearing books and tablets. One tier of moulded butt purlins, and moulded collars with struts to the ridge piece. The C19th chancel hammerbeam roof has angels bearing shields. The moulded purlins, principals and collars are C15th survivals.
The C15th three-bay stepped sedilia in the chancel south wall have cusped ogee heads to each bay below a cornice the cornice continuing east over a similar piscina. There are two blocked chancel windows on each side.
The chancel screen is Jacobean, dated 1618 with two bays right and left of the opening, a panelled dado with top freize of scroll decoration, pierced foliate heads to the lights instead of tracery and a top rail surmounted by paired balusters alternating with panelled obelisks. Below these is a freize of fretwork and dragons. The four-bay late C15th parclose screens to chancel aisles have Perpendicular tracery and crenellated top rails. The handsome C17th altar rails are of arched bays divided by muntins against which are turned balusters, the arches filled with circular and scrolled strapwork pierced panels.
The Perpendicular looking but C17th octagonal font has a traceried stem and a bowl decorated with alternating biblical verses and geometric patterns.
Words variously from British Listed Buildings, Pevsner's Norfolk Buildings, Simon Jenkins 'England's Thousand Best Churches', amended and added to with own on-site observations.