EXTERIOR

 The church sits on a rise above the coast road and is a typical long flint- and-stone building of the l2thC. The south aisle has stepped 2-light 15thC windows, the chancel two very big Perpendicular  windows The 2-light west window is also l4thC. The north aisle with its Y-shaped tracery windows may be earlier The tower was begun in the 13thC and finished in the 14^th and although not as tall as some in the county it rises prominently in view on the road from Cromer. The parapet has four small pinnacles and bell openings with Y tracery on a circular shaft There is one bell of 1715 with the name Thomas Newman on it.

 WAR MEMORIAL

The War Memorial is unusually situated by the road in an angle of the wall of the churchyard embankment.  It is a handsome flint and stone construction with the appropriate and rather moving inscription.

LYCHGATE

The attractive Victorian Lychgate has been moved back from the busy main road and has the carved inscription, O enter into His gates with thanksgiving and Into His courts with praise….. Be thankful unto Him.

THE CALVARY

The Calvary in the churchyard is a memorial to Felix Hackett Matthews, for 45 years Rector of this Parish who died in 1964. The figure is a fibreglass replacement for the original vandalised in the 1970s.

 EXTERIOR CARVINGS

 On the South aisle window-corbels are some carved heads, now quite eroded. They depict, from west to east, a lady, a knight, animals, a queen and a king. Also, under the gable of the south aisle, are two grotesques, a man’s head, and a man pulling his mouth wide open.

   PORCH

INTERIOR

 The interior, which was extensively restored 1n1854 and 1886, is wide and light with a mixture of old and new pamment flooring in terracotta and ochre. The restorations replaced most of the window traceries and the roofs. There are two aisles with 4-bay arcades separated by octagonal piers with double-chamfered arches. Just by the door is an old stone of the l7thC set sideways with much worn lettering, found there in 1963. There’s another outside the porch.

CHANCEL

 In the chancel there are carved Sedilia and a decorated 6-petal piscina retaining its recess for the sacred vessels. The church plate contains a medieval paten.

The old porch has a blocked niche above the entrance. On the east buttress are the remains of a ‘mass-clock’ with the metal base of the gnomon still embedded in the stone. The Victorian door has some fine floriated ironwork, and on each side a carved head, one a bishop, one a queen.

 CARVINGS

In the choir, some old poppyhead carvings have been grafted onto the Victorian pews of 1886.  Though rather battered, one can make out a medieval lady, a merchant, various seedheads and a monstrous face with its tongue out.

STAINED GLASS

There are fragments of old glass in the south choir tracery.

The East End

The 5-light east window was designed by Edward Frampton, and was inserted in 1896. It shows the Ascension of Our Lord, with vigorous drawing and strong composition.

The south chancel windows also by Frampton: of St. George and St Cecilia, after 1896, The south aisle window of the Resurrection, 1904, which is rather dark.

St Francis Chapel

Some Arts & Crafts influence is seen in Frampton’s window at the east end of the south aisle, 19l1, where St. Francis preaches to the birds.

In the north aisle are saints Hilary and Stephen, 1938,  St. Elizabeth with the child, John the Baptist, and Our Lady,1954, by G. Maile of London.

The easternmost window of this aisle is by Harry Stammers, 1959, in a simple ‘modern’ style, typical of its date. It depicts people in various historical costumes, and is signed with his symbol of a ship’s wheel and an S.

The west windows of the aisles were re-glazed in more modern times. The figures of two apostles St. Peter and St. John, 1850’s, were taken from the tower window in 1963 and inserted here in the 1989. They are by J. Grant of Costessey; the roundels show a Pelican and the Agnes Dei. Two other roundels, the Trinity and the Star of David, were lost during the re-glazing.

 The first organ was installed here in 1865, a one manual instrument by Mark Noble. It was transferred to Aylmerton in 1908, where it remains. A two manual organ by Norman & Beard replaced it in that year. This was rebuilt in 1923 by William Middleton, and again in 1944. The present organ with its 441 pipes on the west wall, was built in 1958 by Williamson & Hyatt of Trunch at a cost of £2,300 and the organ of 1908, a new digital console, with an additional choir manual and digital stops, was installed in 2000.

ORGAN