St Nicholas Church is a redundant

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church in the village of

Feltwell Feltwell is a village which holds an RAF base 10 miles (16 km) west of Thetford, Norfolk, England, and is in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk. Landmarks and facilities Feltwell has the largest area of any parish in Norfolk. It is ...

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 ...

, England. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building 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 ...

, and is under the care of the

Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...

. It has a partly collapsed west tower, and is unusual in being broader than it is long, having two side aisles and no

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

History

The original church on the site was built in about 683. This was partly demolished and rebuilt in about 1072. The

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

clerestory In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...

and an octagonal top to the tower were added in the 15th century. In the latter half of that century the church was damaged by fire, and it was repaired in 1491; however, by the 16th century it had fallen into decay. In 1805 it was described as being long and, including the aisles, wide. The chancel was by , the church had a

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

roof, and it was approached up two steps. The tower was round at the bottom and octagonal at the top, and contained five small bells. The church was restored in 1830, although the chancel was demolished in 1862. The

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

had been united with that of St Mary's Church in the village in 1805, and St Nicholas closed for services other than funerals in about 1864. In 1898, when it was being repaired, the tower collapsed, and it has not been rebuilt. During the Second World War the church was used as a place of worship for German prisoners of war. It was declared redundant in 1973 and

vested In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property is acquired by some person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vested right to an ...

in the Churches Conservation Trust in 1975. It is now cared for by the Feltwell Historical and Archaeological Society on behalf of the Trust, and is used for two services each year.

Architecture

Exterior

The body of the church is constructed in

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

and brick with

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

stone dressings. The roofs are

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

d. The remains of the tower are in

ferruginous The adjective ferruginous may mean: * Containing iron, applied to water, oil, and other non-metals * Having rust on the surface * With the rust (color) See also * Ferrous, containing iron (for metals and alloys) or iron(II) cations * Ferric, conta ...

conglomerate, and the porch is built in brick. Its plan consists of a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, and the remains of a west tower. The remains of the tower and the west wall of the church are

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

. Most of the church is in

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

style. In the west wall of the south aisle is a two-light window. The porch is

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d with diagonal

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es and has blocked square-headed side windows. In the south and east walls of the south aisle are two-light windows. The south wall of the clerestory contains three two-light Perpendicular windows. These are flanked by six

flushwork In architecture, flushwork is decorative masonry work which combines on the same flat plane flint and ashlar stone. If the stone projects from a flat flint wall then the term is proudwork, as the stone stands "proud" rather than being "flush" w ...

panels carved with decorated letters and designs. The first panel from the left is decorative, and the next one is carved with the letters 'S' and 't' surmounted by a crown. The next three panels spell out the names or initials of either the

churchwarden A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish or congregation of the Anglican Communion or Catholic Church, usually working as a part-time volunteer. In the Anglican tradition, holders of these positions are ''ex officio'' members of the parish b ...

s at the time, or a pair of benefactors. The panel on the right bears a chequer pattern. Above the last panel is a gleaners' bell. The Perpendicular three-light east window was moved from the original chancel when it was demolished. There is a two-light Perpendicular window in the east wall of the north aisle, and a three-light window in the north wall. Also in the north wall is a doorway over which is a churchwardens' plaque dated 1830. The windows in the north wall of the clerestory are similar to those in the south wall, without any intervening panels.

Interior

The porch has stone benches along each side, and to the right of the doorway are what are thought to be the remains of a

stoup A holy water font or stoup is a vessel containing holy water which is generally placed near the entrance of a church. It is often placed at the base of a crucifix or religious representation. It is used in the Catholic Church, Anglican Churches ...

. The interior of its roof is ornate, and has

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s carved with foliage. Inside the church are two three-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

arcades. The south arcade dates from the 13th century and is carried on quatrefoil

piers Piers may refer to: * Pier, a raised structure over a body of water * Pier (architecture), an architectural support * Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name) * Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...

. The north arcade is from the 15th century, its piers being lozenge-shaped in section. The semicircular tower arch is massive and

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

in style. In the south aisle is a

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman ...

with a cinquefoil head. Along the wall of the north aisle is set a seat, which was used when the church contained no other seating. Also in the north aisle is a stone coffin with a cross on its lid, which was dug up outside the north door in 1830. A Norman

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

carved with chevrons has been re-set into the wall to the left of the altar. The wooden

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...

on the altar was carved by a German prisoner of war. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

was moved from a church in Stanton,

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

in 1962–63, the costs of transporting and re-erecting this being borne by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

. The

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

came from St Martin's Church,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, as a gift about the same time. The single-

manual Manual may refer to: Instructions * User guide * Owner's manual * Instruction manual (gaming) * Online help Other uses * Manual (music), a keyboard, as for an organ * Manual (band) * Manual transmission * Manual, a bicycle technique similar to ...

organ was made by G. M. Holdich of London in 1840. It was moved here from St Mary's Church in the village in 1925 and was restored in 1977. When the tower collapsed, three of the five bells were damaged beyond repair. One of the surviving bells was dedicated to Saint Etheldreda and presented to

Ely Cathedral Ely Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is an Anglican cathedral in the city of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. The cathedral has its origins in AD 672 when St Etheldreda built an abbey church. The presen ...

. The other bell was sold and is now in St Mark's Church, Gabalfa,

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

. In 1970 the tongues (clappers) of the three destroyed bells were restored and attached to the west wall of the church.

References

External links

St Nicholas on the European Round Tower Churches Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feltwell, St Nicholas Church Grade I listed churches in Norfolk Church of England church buildings in Norfolk Churches with elements of Anglo-Saxon work English churches with Norman architecture English Gothic architecture in Norfolk Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust Former Church of England church buildings St Nicholas Church Round towers