Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Narford

This church dates from the 12th century, with significant alterations and additions in the 14th, 15th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

The building is constructed mainly of randomly laid flint, both whole and cut, with various repairs and alterations in red brick and carrstone. Dressings are of limestone with some red brick. Roof coverings include 20th-century lead sheet on the chancel and aisle roofs, a leaded tower roof dated 1914, 20th-century concrete tiles on the nave, and slate on the porch.

The church comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a west tower and a south porch. The subterranean vault of the Fountaine family of Narford Hall sits in the angle between the north wall of the chancel and the east wall of the north aisle.

The 12th-century nave retains evidence of its original flint quoins. Its north and south clerestories each have three two-light windows with elliptical-headed lights under a square label with hollow-chamfer and head stops. The east gable shows evidence of an earlier, steeper roof. The chancel also retains original flint quoins and dates from the 12th century, though it was remodelled in the 13th century with its eaves line raised in chalk block on the south wall and smaller flints on the north wall. Both walls show evidence of blocked lancets and low-side windows. The two-light east window with ogee elements is a 19th-century restoration. The north and south aisles date from the 14th century. The north aisle has been strengthened with three 18th-century brick buttresses and contains two 14th-century square-headed windows with cusped ogees. The south aisle also has two two-light square-headed windows, much restored. The west bay of the north aisle features a blocked doorway with two orders of continuous wave-moulding and a hoodmould on stops; the corresponding doorway to the south aisle is similarly detailed, with the door unusually opening outwards and inscribed 'IR 1789'. Each aisle's east wall contains a blocked early 14th-century window with cusped Y-tracery.

The tower dates from the 15th century but was substantially remodelled and restored in 1857 in memory of Caroline, wife of Andrew Fountaine (1676–1753). The lower stage retains 15th-century masonry with two diagonal buttresses, a 15th-century west door with a two-light Perpendicular window above, and square 19th-century traceried vents on the north, south and west faces of the silence chamber. Above, offset by a stringcourse, the belfry stage has two-light traceried 19th-century openings on each of its four faces, each with a pierced slate screen. Elaborate 19th-century parapets set on a coved stringcourse feature fleuron decoration (pierced panels of arcading and quatrefoils under a stepped coping), inscribed centre panels on each face with Biblical texts from Revelation and 1 Thessalonians on the north and south faces and memorial texts to Caroline on the east and west faces, and square corner pinnacles with two tiers of blind arcading under gablets supporting tall crocketed finials. The south porch, probably dating from the 16th century, has been much altered and rebuilt, with a roughly chamfered south arch, brick window openings to the east and west walls, and a slated roof. In the angle between the north wall of the chancel and east wall of the north aisle, a subterranean vault of the Fountaine family is surrounded by iron railings with spear-head uprights and gateposts with urn-finials.

Internally, the nave roof comprises seven bays with moulded and arch-braced principals, the braces carried up to a high collar, king-strut and down to wall-posts, with roll-moulded ridge-piece, one tier of butt-purlins, moulded cornice and plain boarded ceiling. The aisles have plain roofs of seven bays with moulded principals on wall-posts with short back-braces. The chancel roof, probably dating from the 20th century, comprises three bays with arch-braced roll-moulded principals carried down to wall-posts on carved polygonal corbels. The 14th-century north and south arcades of the nave each consist of two bays with double hollow-chamfer arches on a central polygonal pier and responds. The slightly simpler detailing of the south arcade is echoed in the 14th-century chancel arch. The tall 15th-century tower arch has a continuous outer chamfer and hollow-chamfered inner order set on embellished polygonal corbels. The south wall of the chancel contains a 13th-century dropped-cill sedilia with a central armrest and a tall restored piscine with a cusped arch head, shelf and petalled bowl. The north wall has a 14th-century tomb recess containing a stone coffin lid with a coped top and floriate cross. The southeast corner of the nave shows a tall blocked opening to the former rood stair.

The church contains a medieval octagonal font with a good 17th-century timber cover, a good late 17th- or early 18th-century polygonal pulpit, 18th-century communion rails with turned balusters, a nave floor of brick laid in a herringbone pattern with flush areas of wood block for pews, and stone slabs and encaustic tiles in the chancel and sanctuary. It also contains many ledger slabs and wall monuments. The most notable are two mid-18th-century monuments in the south aisle: one to the memory of Sir Andrew Fountaine (celebrated 18th-century art collector and companion of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift), comprising a dark marble sarcophagus with a white marble bust (a copy of an original by Louis-François Roubilliac held in the Norwich Museum collection), an urn and inscription panel; and another to Sarah and Elizabeth Fountaine (Sir Andrew's mother and daughter respectively), comprising an inscribed chest with a heavy plinth, surmounted by a sarcophagus, an obelisk with an urn finial and heraldic achievement.

Narford was once a considerable village with its own market and fairs but fell into decline from the 16th century onwards and is now one of Norfolk's many lost villages. The church is thought originally to have comprised a 12th-century nave and slightly narrower chancel.