Definitely the loveliest stretch of the walk between this year's seven churches: through a (managed) meadow still full of wild flowers sloping up to the isolated and airy St Michael, Broome. Our group was differently constituted this year: mover and shaker Jill was in Milan for work, though she generously still planned the route for us, and the other member of the original foursome, Cally, had also got back late on Friday night from leading a tour group in Italy. But for the past years Kate and Fairless have been part of the group, and we love staying with them in Norwich (alas, this was the last time, as they're moving north to be close to the grandchildren). Jane and John first came with us three years ago, and this time mutual friend Robina joined us. John did the honours of the route on an ordnance survey map, and I left him to an impeccable job of leading the way.
We forgot to do a selfie at the starting point so here we are before the meadow walk.
Meet-up - three drove from Bedford - was at St Michael and All Saints, Stockton, c.10.15am: first of our round towers (the batch of seven churches in 10.6 miles was also rich in Norman doorways, fragments of medieval glass and pulpits). This one is platered, which is a pity, but it has a big caryatid next to it.
The tower also has a 'pretty, recessed lead spire' (Pevsner), which the church guide tells us was added in the late 18th century so that the rector, also vicar of Bungay, could see the church from his vicarage, and the roof is 'thatched with Norfolk reed' (common around here, I guess because the Broads are nearby).
The alteration for the spire meant that the bells had to be hung lower, and the battens were then used as porch benches.
The massive door lock is thought to be original.
Simon Knott, whose coverage of the Norfolk churches is comprehensive - we'll never catch up - found St Michael closed - on the first two occasions the keykeeper was unavailable, and on the third the contact details had been removed - and rightly rails against such a thing, given that there are houses in the vicinity. There was no-one to greet us either here or in any of the other churches - a big departure from previous years - but at least it was open in honour of the Norfolk Churches Ride, Walk and Drive, as they now call it, in aid of the Norfolk Churches Trust.
The font is 'a heavy piece with the four signs of the Evangelists nearly in the round' (Pevsner) and with a Jacobean cover.
The East Window originally had a full 15th century representation of the Adoration of the Wise Men, apparently fallen into a certain dilapidation and removed in the 19th century restoration. How much was lost, I wonder? At any rate, we have two lovely fragments in a south window.
Pevsner denounces Suffling's work in the 1890 e. window replacement 'not good', but details seem fine to me, and no Victorian ever failed St Michael and his dragon.
Even so, the medieval glass wins out. There are more fragments in a nave window, oddly jammed together, an angel's head, heraldic shield and the five wounds of Christ (not seen them so represented before).
Other, later panels are well placed in a window otherwise giving out on to the green scene beyond.
Curiously Pevsner misses the most endearing feature of the church, the 14th century benches for the church wardens with four Talbot hounds - now extinct as a breed - one strikingly muzzled.
There are two wall inscriptions, the writing clear enough to make out the names of the people involved, which would date them to before 1561.
The roof is attractive, but even the church guide had nothing to say about its inscription.
It was only about a mile to our next destination, along a couple of fields, one with very noisy geese in it.
Kirby Cane looked extremely promising - a handsome long wall, a big house over it, and the church of All Saints next door. Another Anglo-Saxon round tower, cedars of Lebanon in the churchyard
So far, so good. But the church door was locked, the form for the walk left in the porch. J is there examining the numbers to phone.
We thought for a while we'd only have the first of our Norman doorways to admire, which of course is somewhat. Pevsner: '...one order of colonnettes. Decorated shaft. Zigzag arch. Also continuous zigzag along the inner order. This is set at r. angles to the wall surface. Hood-mould with unusual flowers. Beast's head in the apex'.
Two of the phone numbers on the board yielded an engaged signal: off the hook? The third had an answerphone message. We were about to give up hope when Edward Crisp of Kirby Cane Hall called back. A few minutes later he came over with the key and his jolly dog.
I'm in two minds about the poor state into which the church is falling. The Hall and the associated farm seem to be thriving; should the Norfolk Churches Trust help out with the maintenance or should the Flints do more?
We wondered why there were grubby drapes over so much in the church. Bats? No, please! The problem was the floor giving way (?) What's for sure is that the interior has much to offer. The font has eight heads on the underside of the bowl, a lady's hairstyle dating it to c, 1360-80.
Plentiful photographs around the west end suggest there was once a lot of pride in the locality.
There's a Jacobean pulpit (uncovered, unlike the lectern next to it).
18th century painting of the chancel ceiling is attractive
while the communion rail is late 17th century 'with dumb-bell balusters' (Pevsner)
and on the floor behind it are two memorials with handsome coats of arms.
There's also a tomb-chest with shields, possibly for John Copeldike who died in 1593.
Very little glass here, but this coat of arms is attractive enough.
The next stretch of our walk was attractive in various ways. First we walked through the hall's parkland, buzzards mewling overhead,
with fine views of the late Georgian house
and a late 17th century summer house. You can just see the round tower and nave roof of the church behind it.
Further stretches took us past a field of nearly-over sunflowers
and a pleasant shady lane
until at last we came in sight of our next church, St Michael, Broome, visible from that lovely planted meadow I referred to up top , which was a joy to walk through.
St Michael's tower. ornate Perpendicular, looks much grander from the west
The west doorway has tracery and shields in the spandrels, with a quatrefoil frieze above it. Below is the sort of flushwork in the base we saw a lot of last year, and Pevsner praises the window for its 'dainty Perp. tracery'.
This seemed like the best place for lunch - Kate-made sandwiches using Fairless's wonderful home-made bread - though we weren't half way yet on our route.
I liked the meadow effect around the gravestones on the south side
and here, too, was a fine nave window with heads either side of it.
The perspective from the east includes a pretty little angel memorial (for some reason I'm especially fond of this photo).
This is clearly a well-tended and attended church (the village, down the hill somewhere, was not visible, nor did we pass it). Harvest Festival was imminent, apples and flowers around the original part of the font (base and four lions, of a design we'd seen often previously)
and on the window ledges.
There was some presumably discoloured old glass fragments,
a putti-ed monument to John Fowle (d, 1732),
a memento mori on a a floor memorial,
and an early 19th century mahogany organ case.
Much refreshed, we enjoyed the sense of space as we headed westward and above a rather lovely valley with interesting platelet clouds in a blue sky
to Thwaite St Mary, where we met an Irish-born resident who'd been at the same Fathers School as J's father - what are the chances? - and who regaled us with tales of another war-hero Irishman who'd built several places in the village.
As the village sign makes clear, the late Norman doorway is the chief glory of the church, though the tower and another thatched roof are attractive too.
I can't match Pevsner for detail here: '...two orders of colonnettes. Decorated shafts and decoration even in the angles between the colonnettes. One motif is small sunk scallop shells. In the arch twisted rope, roll and a kind of ornament that looks like beak-head left in the block and never carved. Hood-mould of two orders of scallops set at r. angles to the wall surfaces. A beast at the apex'.
Not much to see in the pleasant interior, though we were grateful for the refreshments left - still nobody in sight -
and this squirrel-topped memorial has splendid words (click to enlarge).
St Mary's tower, with three shields halfway up, again looks finer from the west: 'basically probably quite early,' says Pevsner, unhelpfully without further detail.
Next stretch needed some maintenance from John's secateurs, then opened out into big-sky country. At one point swallows were shrieking and diving - among the last, surely - but my photo only provides ocular proof, nothing more.
Before deciding whether to include the splendidly-named Seething in our itinerary, which might mean finding the last church closed after 6pm - I insisted, because of the wall-paintings - we took a break to consume Kate's brownies for afternoon tea.
Curiously, St Peter, Mundham, was visible before we got to St Margaret and St Remigius, Seething (the two are very close together).
Seething's church is tucked away behind the main houses and offers a splendid yew-lined approach past the Norman round tower.
The 14th century wall paintings didn't disappoint. I couldn't quite work out 'the Three Quick and the Three Dead (damaged on the left)' (Pevsner), though St Christopher was clear enough.
nor too much of 'the Life of Christ, with Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection. Ascension, and the Coronation of the Virgin. Then St John Baptist'
The bigger figures complement the font with its four Evangelists. We were back to the Seven Sacraments on the bowl, of which we'd seen several examples two years ago. These have obviously been over-restored. The good folk of Seething were also preparing for their harvest festival.
There are interesting fragments of old glass: some in a window on the south side of the nave
and an angel on the north side of the chancel.
Of the old screen, only the dado remains. We've seen so many splendid painted figures over the years - Pevsner claims there is one here, not to be found - that this was a disappointment. Still, the floral designs are cheery.
Church doors deserve more of a mention. This one was impressive
and the 13th century windows were all pleasing from the outside.
So we left St Margaret and St Remigius by the north side, smallholdings making good use of part of the graveyard,
and took a path through a field to Mundham
in some trepidation because a sign mentioned a bull among the cows. They followed and stared, but kept their distance, just.
St Peter reminded me of St Mary Haddiscoe, the last church on our official route back in 2024 - both its being on an eminence
and being possessed of yet another fine Norman doorway (though the tower is Victorian). Pevsner likes enlarging, so here we go again, proving that it's not dissimilar to the door at Thwaite St Mary: 'Two orders of colonnettes with decorated shafts, capitals approaching waterleaf in their design. Arch with zigzag, roll, inturned volutes, etc., hood-mould with two orders of scallops at r. angles to the wall surface'.
The door again is fine
and the church feels all of a piece, with an old screen between nave and chancel.
You can just make out a St Christopher carrying the Christ child on the north wall.
The 15th century piscina with carved faces in the chancel still has its original wooden credence shelf (niche for holding vessels prior to consecration, apparently).
For details of the memorial to William Harborne, I'm indebted to Simon Knott: 'remarkably perhaps for this quiet little backwater, Harborne was the ambassador to Constantinople during the later years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. His inscription is wholly secular, and bids us to Behold a dead man's howse who full of dayes reetirde here from the world. Desert and praise should sitt upon his grave in vertuous strife, this to instruct and that to wright his life. Heires, spare your cost, he needs no toombe in death who embassagde for Queen Elizabeth. His next will be when at the generall dome God sends his soule to fetch his bodye home.'
Somewhat enfeebled three years after my big operation, certainly slower, I'd been debating whether to stop here, let the others complete the remaining 2.6 miles and come and pick me up. I could have gone off to look at the ruin of St Ethelbert's east end, not as close as Seething, which pressing on would make us miss. But I was feeling OK, so we all continued. It had clouded over and we passed through several rather unlovely farms, but the hay-gathering added interest.
This house, however, livened things up a bit (could it be Thurton Hall? There are no photos online)
We reached the church quicker than I expected, via a fine old barn of 1698 with stepped gables.
So here it was, in rather gloomy light now, St Ethelbert, Thurton, another one with thatch.
It was no surprise to find it locked, well after the official end time for this year's walk, but at least we could see our last Norman doorway. Here's Fairless giving it a try and inspecting the sign.
We missed out on a fine assemblage of collected glass from the 15th to 18th centuries, but could get an idea of it from the outside.
Then it was a brief procession down the hill, getting a good sense of how well the church is situated above most of the settlement,
and in to the pub for our supper.
It might not have looked very promising, with a security camera instead of an inn sign, and inside it was very down to earth, but as promised, they had an Indian chef who served superb food of its kind, including perfect pakora. There was a brief wait while one carload went back to the starting point to pick up the other car, and then we were soon back in the Old Rectory.
This is always used by self and others as a tool to encourage you to donate, which you can do citing 'for David and Jeremy' so we know if not who it is, whom it's for on the Norfolk Churches Trust's JustGiving page. A thousand thanks to those who already have.
Here are the links to all previous Norfolk church walks covered on the blog (we actually did our first in 2002, around the Burnhams). Seems I've still not caught up with an entry for the second group of Norwich churches
Heckingham to Burgh St Peter, 2024
Happisburgh to Winterton, 2017
Beechamwell to Gooderstone, 2013
Ingoldisthorpe to Thornham, 2012
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