_Norfolk's unique church and cathedral story

Norfolk has the largest concentration of medieval churches in the world, more than 650, the biggest number of round tower churches and two magnificent cathedrals. Here’s a challenge for you: find a horizon that isn’t punctuated by a church tower. It’s not easy.

To know why is to understand a lot about why Norfolk today is so unspoilt.

For many centuries the weaving industry, which nurtured towns like North Walsham and Worstead, brought immense wealth to the region. And that wealth could be used to get closer to God, particularly for rich landowners keen to ensure their piety took them to Heaven.

Norwich Cathedral

Largest medieval cloisters in the country, after Salisbury the second tallest spire at 315-feet, and built more than 900 years ago, the Cathedral - and also the Castle - dominate the skyline, as the Norman Conquerors probably intended. Work started on Norwich Cathedral in 1096 using Caen stone from France. It took 54 years to complete.

This very fine example of early medieval architecture stands in the heart of the city. Built contemporaneously with the Norman Castle, Norwich Cathedral, or the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, boasts many treasures, from the Bishop's Throne to superb stained glass, an amazing collection of roof bosses in the cathedral building, the largest medieval cloister in the UK which hosts events throughout the year, and medieval graffiti.

The story of how it came about is, however, rather less glorious. Herbert de Losinga bought the Bishopric of Thetford for 1000 marks from the Crown, an act of simony. He immediately felt a pang of conscience and offered his resignation to the Pope. The Pontiff thought about it and gave his forgiveness – on condition Losinga built a cathedral in Norwich.

There is a foundation stone in the cathedral laid in 1096 by its creator and the formidable Bishop’s body lies before the High Altar.

Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Norwich

The second largest Catholic cathedral in the UK after Westminster Cathedral, St John the Baptist was designed by George Gilbert Scott, paid for by Henry Fitzalan-Howard, the 15th Duke of Norfolk, and is a fine example of 19th Century Gothic Revival.

A letter of 1892 from the Duke to the City Corporation suggested the style was chosen because the city had a Norman cathedral and many Perpendicular parish churches, but ‘no examples of the pure and noble Early English style’.

Incredibly, it was originally built as a parish church but consecrated as the cathedral church for the newly elected Diocese of East Anglia and the seat of the Bishop of East Anglia in 1976.

The Nave is outstanding, the building has some of the finest 19th Century stained glass in the country and the stonework grand but, if you look closely, behind the façade you’ll see the framework is actually Victorian brick!

Tours of the tower provide fabulous views across the city and, on a good day, to Happisburgh lighthouse.

Round tower churches in Norfolk

East Anglia is well known for its round tower churches, and Norfolk alone has over 120 of these, more than three times as many as any other county.

Built in the 100 years after 1050, round towers were probably built for cultural reasons, when Norfolk had stronger trading links with the Baltic and North Sea communities than with the rest of England. Round towers are also seen in northern Germany in Lower Saxony and Schleswig Holstein and parts of Sweden (once Danish), Norway and The Orkneys.

Look closely and you'll see subtle differences in the stone the flint knappers used. Around Fakenham the flint is brownfield, there’s black flint around Thetford and Swaffham, chalk-covered grey flint above North Walsham, light grey around Holt, and rounded beach flints near Wells-next-the-Sea, Sheringham and Cromer.

Wool churches in Norfolk

The profits of the medieval wool trade fuelled an extraordinary ecclesiastical building boom in Norfolk.

At St. Mary's Church at Worstead, the village which gave its name to the cloth, the village church built by local weavers in the fourteenth-century towers over the small community, its tower jutting strikingly above the landscape. Diss, North Walsham, East Harling, Attleborough, Aylsham all have good examples of wool churches and Wymondham has its own wool abbey.

Even in Norwich, which boasts more medieval churches than anywhere in Europe, it was wool money that got the stone lifted, the glass stained and the panels carved.

Norfolk wool was best suited to heavier cloth, and so Norwich and Norfolk eventually gained an almost complete monopoly on worsted.

St. Agnes's Church at Cawston is also well known as a wool church. Its fifteenth century nave and western tower were financed by Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who had grown rich from the wool business. Typical of a wool church, St. Agnes's scale is far grander than what the modest medieval village required.

And the Earl of Suffolk spared no expense in embellishing the interior: the de la Pole crest is carved above the entrance; French stone was used for the tower and nave; the roof, although the typical wooden East Anglian style, is an elaborate hammerbeam confection with elaborate angels curving off the beam ends, and a trio of angels on outstretched wings hovering over each clerestory window.

Plague churches in Norfolk

You'll also see many plague churches across Norfolk – they’re often the ones standing out in the middle of nowhere, after villages were left unviable following the Black Death of 1349.

At villages like Reedham and Horning you’ll find churches away from the current village – a sure sign that the Black Death called and settlements were abandoned leaving the church alone.

Walsingham Shrine

Walsingham has been a place of pilgrimage since the Middle Ages — one of the four great shrines of medieval Christendom, ranking alongside Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago da Compostella.

In 1061 the lady of the manor, Richeldis de Faverches, had a series of visions of the Virgin Mary, who showed her the house in Nazareth where the angel Gabriel made his revelation of the forthcoming birth of Jesus. Our Lady asked Richeldis to build a replica of the holy house here in Walsingham.

Founded at the time of the Crusades when it was impossible to visit the Holy Land, English Christians were able to visit ‘Nazareth’ in their own country. Walsingham became the premier shrine to Our Lady and around it grew a large monastery.

The entire medieval village was dominated by ecclesiastical buildings and fine medieval timber-framed jetted buildings — still visible today — that provided hostelries and shops serving the pilgrims who poured into the village.

Then came the Reformation in 1538. Walsingham’s principal trade came to an abrupt end. The priory and the friary were dissolved and all property handed over to the King’s Commissioners. The famous statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was taken to London to be publicly burnt.

The pilgrimage revival began in the late 19th century with the arrival of the railway.

St Benet’s Abbey

The only monastery in England to survive Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries, St Benet’s Abbey ruins lie on the river Bure outside the village of Ludham in the heart of the Broads National Park.

St Benet's was the first Benedictine monastery in Norfolk, founded on an island site surrounded by marshes around AD 1020 by King Cnut. The king may simply have been acknowledging the already sacred nature of a site where Christian hermits appear to have lived since the 9th century.

Construction of the monastic buildings began in the early 11th century, with the first stone church probably built by Abbot Aelfsige during Cnut's reign and completion at the end of the 13th century.

The monks of St Benet's also helped found the important Benedictine Abbey at Bury St Edmunds.

One of the late medieval patrons of St Benet's was Sir John Fastolf, the model for William Shakespeare's Falstaff, who was a successful knight in the wars against the French and built Caister Castle.

The abbey also managed extensive peat diggings throughout the medieval period - the same peat excavation that helped create the Norfolk Broads.

In 1915 St Benet's Abbey became one of the first Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Britain and today it is the one consecrated monastic building in the country, with the Bishop of Norwich still the Abbot of St Benet’s.

King’s Lynn Minster

King’s Lynn Minster, formerly St Margaret’s Church and founded in 1101 by Herbert de Losinga, dominates Saturday Market Place in the heart of the medieval town.

One of the largest parish churches in the country, St Margaret's church was granted the honorary title King's Lynn Minster in 2011 by the Bishop of Norwich.

The 14th-century chancel stalls are decorated with carved heads, including Edward, the Black Prince, and Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich.

Look out for the flood level markings by the west door and the unusual 15th-century rounded east window.

Great Yarmouth Minster

The third largest parish church in the country, the former St Nicholas Church was founded in 1101 by, yes, you know who, our friend Herbert de Losinga.

Possibly the oldest building in Great Yarmouth and certainly its most visible and historic landmark, it sits close to the market place and the home of Black Beauty author Anna Sewell.

A considerable expansion was planned in 1330 but abandoned when the Black Death came to visit – it’s said that had the changes happened the church would have been made a cathedral.

In 1942 the church was completely gutted during a German air raid leaving only the Norman tower and the walls standing and was reconsecrated in 1961.

Like King’s Lynn above, it was officially designated a Minster Church in December 2011 by the Bishop of Norwich.

Other useful links

Explore Norfolk Churches digital booklet

Norwich Diocese

Norfolk Churches Trust

Medieval churches of Norwich