SALLE : CHURCH OF ST PETER & ST PAUL
Church Post Code NR10 4SD
Open to visitors
Visited June 2022
I first visited Salle in February of 2018. The ‘Beast from the East’ had met storm Emma and much of the country was blanketed under snow. As a professional gardener I take most of my breaks during the winter and I had hired a holiday cottage in Cromer at that time; this providing an interesting journey with memories of three foot snow drifts at Swaffham where the snow ploughs had been through, still fresh in the memory.
It was a little above freezing with snow still on the ground when I arrived at the church of St Peter & St Paul; three days later and was pleasantly surprised to find it open! All credit to anyone who opened up that morning. Entering in through the north porch the cold hit me; my goodness it was cold inside! This is a truly huge interior and surely impossible to heat in winter!
The revisit was in June 2022; on a day’s churchcrawling in Norfolk which had also seen a visit to neighbouring Booton, the church of St Michael and All Angels, and its gloriously eccentric gothic church and, to be fair, its gloriously eccentric Victorian vicar Whitwell Elwin who designed the rebuilding of this church himself; which included a series of stained glass depictions of the various women that Elwin had apparently been friend with during his life. We had also visited St Agnes at Cawston where I had the great pleasure of spending a little time with a lady who was 106 years old; revisiting her old church from a nursing home, who was sat in a wheelchair as close as possible to the seat that she regularly sat in as a child getting on for a hundred years previously!
It was about 25 degrees warmer than on that original visit as we pulled up at Salle church; warm and pleasant, a typically English village scene with a cricket match going in the cricket ground adjacent to the church.
Salle is a hamlet of around 20 houses a few farms and a church. The population was 50 at the time of the 2001 census. It is to be found some ten miles north west of Norwich. The beautiful market town of Aylsham is a few miles off to the east and Cawston, with one of the finest rood screens in East Anglia, is around three miles away in a south easterly direction. Also close by is Reepham, interesting as it has three churches, one being a ruin, in one churchyard.
The church of St Peter & St Paul at Salle was built between 1400 and 1450, likely replacing an earlier church that was previously on this site, and is viewed as one of the finest parish churches in Norfolk, and indeed the whole country. The church is vast, standing proud against the flat Norfolk landscape.
This is a wool church, with the church being built on the vast profits that were made at that time from the wool trade. Merchants in the area at that time compiled vast fortunes and at one point Norwich was England’s second city behind London. These wool churches were not built in accordance with the population of the village, rather they were built as an act of devotion; built to the glory of God but also as a means to pray and sing masses for the donors and their families; lessening the time that they had to spend in Purgatory following their deaths during those pre reformation days when the state religion was Catholic.
The church consists of west tower, nave with north and south aisles and clerestories, north porch, north and south transepts and chancel. Something quite horrible appears to have happened to the north transept with the large window being bricked up and a large monument being placed in front of it. The wealth of the benefactors of this church at the time of construction was that expensive Barnack stone was shipped in from near to Peterborough for building.
The heavily buttressed west tower, which stands 11 feet tall, is of four stages, with the top stage dating from the early 16th century. A battlemented flushwork parapet surrounds the top with a crocketed pinnacle at each of the four corners of the tower. A clock can be seen on the east face of the tower.
The north and south porches are each of two storeys and there are six two light windows on the north and south clerestories. The south transept has a fine four light south window. The north transept has a three light east window, but as already mentioned the north window is no more; bricked up sadly. The battlemented flushwork parapet extends throughout the nave and transepts.
At the time of L’Estrange’s Victorian study of the church bells of Norfolk, there were six bells hanging here, with two of these being of great age and antiquity. The first two of the ring were from Thomas Mears, each cast in 1836. The third was cast by Charles Newman, a founder from Norwich, in 1698.
The first of real history is the fourth of the ring which is inscribed ‘EDMVNDVS DE LENNE ME FECIT’. The De Lenne refers to Kings Lynn and this is attributed to Edmund Belyetere who worked out of premises in Kings Lynn. The National Church Bell Database dates this bell at c1330 but that does not fit in with known founders of that name, but it is safe to say that this was cast either 14th or early 15th century.
The fifth of the ring in dated 1852 and came courtesy of C&G Mears in 1852. The sixth of the ring at that time is the other of real interest. This was cast by Richard Baxter, a Norwich founder, in 1420. Baxter had a prolific career and was active from 1416 until 1457. Today the situation is different in that there is a ring of eight bells. Two more were added by Mears & Stainbank in 1912.
Moving inside, as you would expect there is a real sense of space here at it was good to just stand and take in the interior; trying to imagine what things must have been like here in pre reformation days; with full time clergy at work in the various chapels; the sounds of Masses being said or chanted, the smells of incense; the hustle and bustle of a busy pre reformation church. Things would have altered greatly after the Reformation; with the chapels closed down, rood lofts and the rood themselves taken down and destroyed; stained glass broken and statues defaced as the reformers attempted to strip worship back to its basics and get rid of those things which had been seen to be a staple part of worship; but which were now deemed to be idolatrous.
There are six bay arcades to north and south, with piers consisting of four shafts with four hollows. Walls are whitewashed with several hatchments from the great and the good of the parish. The centre aisle is very wide, with grave slabs running towards the chancel. A glance upwards shows an area above the chancel arch where there is evidence of wall painting; perhaps there would have been a doom painting here at one point illustrating graphically what would happen to those judge as being righteous or otherwise of the day of judgement.
