Church Of St Martin

Church of St Martin, New Buckenham

A parish church built in flint with ashlar dressings. The building comprises a west tower of early 16th-century date, a nave and aisles of 15th-century origin (restored in 1879), and a 13th-century chancel that was rebuilt in 1895. The roofs are lead over the nave and aisles, with machine plain tiles over the chancel.

The tower is four storeys tall with diagonal buttresses. It sits on an ashlar plinth with panels carved with route tournantes and tracery that run continuously around the south nave and porch. The west door is moulded and shafted, flanked by flushwork panels beneath a frieze of shields. A three-light panel traceried window with hood moulding is continuous with the string course. The third stage contains pierced ventilation panels and three-light belfry windows with rising super mullions set within four-centred arches. A clock face is mounted on the south side. Large gargoyles project above the belfry windows, and the corner pinnacles to the parapet are crocketted. Brick and flint flushwork decorates the upper stages.

The aisles are buttressed diagonally at the ends and with flat buttresses to the flanks. A three-light panelled window lights the south aisle to the west. The south porch has a dislocated base and string course. Its exterior arch, rebuilt in 1983, is flanked by flushwork panels and diagonal buttresses, each with a statuary niche on the lower set-offs and crenellations on the upper. An ogeed and vaulted niche sits above the doorway. The inner door is moulded and dates to the early 14th century. The porch roof features a longitudinal beam with double wave chamfers and stops. A crenellated flushwork parapet and blocked windows to east and west complete the porch.

Four three-light panel traceried windows with four-centred arches and hood moulds light the aisles, with moulded jambs and brick relieving arches. A three-light east window opens to the aisle. The chancel has two south windows of 1895 date and an arched priest's door. A four-light Decorated east window of 1895 sits between diagonal buttresses with gabled kneelers and chequered flintwork in the east wall. The north side mirrors the south with minor variations. Ten panel windows in the clerestory, north and south, are set beneath four-centred arches with hood moulds, moulded jambs, and brick relieving arches. An arched north door provides entry.

Interior

The arcade comprises five bays. The south arcade has quatrefoil piers with hollow fillets between the foils, set on high moulded bases with polygonal capitals and double wave moulded arches, all of early 15th-century date. The north arcade, dated 1479, features elongated lozenge piers on high polygonal bases and capitals to east and west, with continuous casement moulding running into the arches. The tower arch, of early 16th-century date, also carries continuous casements and a bundle of wave mouldings.

The clerestory windows are set randomly throughout. The nave roof is a false hammerbeam construction on arched braces and wall posts, with two tiers of moulded butt purlins, principals, and a ridge piece. The roof was restored in 1879, when the carved head corbels were renewed. The aisle roofs comprise arched braces with traceried spandrels to moulded purlins and principals. All windows except those in the clerestory are internally moulded. A four-centred arch opens to the rood stairs. A north-east nave chapel is entered through a high bowtell moulded arch. A four-centred arch into the chancel is now blocked by the organ. The chancel arch is of 19th-century date.

The chancel contains bench sedilia and a trefoil piscina. A four-centred wall tomb in the north wall stands beneath a squared hood decorated with shields and roundels. A brass of a woman in profile is missing from the rear wall. The chancel roof is a hammerbeam of 19th-century date. An altar table of 17th-century date stands at the east end of the south aisle. Six 15th-century poppyheads survive on benches installed during the 1879 restoration.

The octagonal font, dated 1619, has a stem decorated with Green men and lions, and a bowl alternating with shields and tracery details.