St Mary's Church, Great Bircham dates from the 12th-century, and is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

parish church in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

Diocese of Norwich in

Great Bircham Great Bircham is the largest of the three villages that make up the civil parish of Bircham, in the west of the English county of Norfolk. The village is located about half a mile south of the village of Bircham Newton, the same distance west of ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

History

The earliest parts of the church are the Norman tower dating from ca. 1200. The tower door is 12th century and the north door and Purbeck marble font date from the 13th century. The chancel is early 14th century and the nave mid 14th century. The chancel exterior wall is covered in cement render. The 15th century screen survives. The church is noted for its box pews which date from 1850 and are decorated with poppyheads. In 1939 the church sold a crimson cope of about 1480 given by Roger Le Strange in 1505 to the St Peter Hungate Museum in Norwich to fund repairs to the church.

Parish status

The church is in a joint benefice with: * All Saints’ Church, Bircham Newton * St Mary's Church, Docking * St Mary's Church, Sedgeford * All Saints’ Church, Stanhoe * All Saints’ Church, Fring

Organ

In 1869 the church is recorded as having a barrel organ. A new pipe organ was installed in 1882 and was built by E Norman. It was restored in 1926. The current organ dating from 1940 is by

Gray and Davison Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

and was originally in Emmanuel Church, Broad Street, Chesham, Buckinghamshire. It was moved to Great Bircham around 1998 and was installed by Kenneth Canter of Bury St Edmunds. A specification of the organ can be found in the National Pipe Organ Register.

Bells

The tower contains a ring of 5 bells. Two date from the late 17th century and were cast by Charles Newman. The middle bell dates from 1878 by John Warner and Sons. The two heaviest bells are by

Mears and Stainbank The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. The bell foundry primarily made church bells a ...

and date from 1923.

References

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