Church of St Ethelbert is a Grade I listed building in the Breckland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 16 July 1958. Church.
Church of St Ethelbert
- WRENN ID
- inner-steeple-thrush
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Breckland
- Constituency
- South West Norfolk MP: Terry Jermy (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 16 July 1958
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Ethelbert, Roudham and Larling
- OS grid reference
- TL 982 897
- Coordinates
- 52.46961, 0.91695
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Ethelbert is a parish church located in Roudham Larling, dating from the 12th, 14th, and 15th centuries. It is constructed of flint with ashlar quoins and features a tiled roof. The church consists of a south aisle, nave, chancel, and a west tower. The south aisle is from the 14th century and includes angle buttresses with gablets, as well as parapets at the gable ends that have fragments of crosses at the ridge. A continuous string course is interrupted by the porch. The west and south windows have 2-light lozenge tracery, while the east window has 3 lights with cusped intersecting ogee designs. The chancel features two 2-light Y windows on the north and south sides, and there is a priest's door in the south wall. The east window from the 19th century is in a late Geometric style.
The north wall of the nave, which has no aisle, is supported by four buttresses with one set-off, two of which are incorporated into a 19th-century vestry. There are two notable 2-light Perpendicular windows with hood moulds. The tower has four stages, angle buttresses, and flushwork, with two lower set-offs and a staircase on the north-west side that includes slit lights. The belfry features elaborate 2-light Perpendicular windows on all sides, all dating from the 15th century. The south porch was rebuilt in 1898.
The south door, dating from the 12th century, is of very high quality, featuring two orders of shafts with diamond stud and scroll-twist decoration, billet studding between the shafts, foliated rings, volute capitals, and two arch rolls with an elaborate billet and diamond frieze. Inside, the church has a three-bay arcade leading to the south aisle, supported by octagonal piers on bell-moulded bases and moulded capitals, with double chamfered arches. There is a piscina and sedilia in the aisle from the 14th century, as well as a similar double sedilia in the chancel. The font is a square block style from the 14th century, and the church has a timber roof throughout from the 19th century.
Local climate
Church of St Ethelbert sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 720 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 84% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 98% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 30 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 64% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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