Church of St Mary is a Grade I listed building in the Breckland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 30 May 1951. A Medieval and later (explicitly C14, C15, C17 elements and later 18th-century parvis 1743) Church.

Church of St Mary

WRENN ID
noble-pediment-bone
Grade
I
Local Planning Authority
Breckland
Constituency
Mid Norfolk MP: George Freeman (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
30 May 1951
Type
Church
Period
Medieval and later (explicitly C14, C15, C17 elements and later 18th-century parvis 1743)
Address
Church of St Mary, Fransham
OS grid reference
TF 902 122
Coordinates
52.67488, 0.81195
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Mary is a parish church that dates from the medieval period and later. It is constructed of flint with ashlar dressings, and features some brick and slate roofs. The building includes a former west tower, an aisleless nave with a south porch, and a chancel. The early 14th-century nave has four (formerly five) 2-light cusped Y-traceried windows. The west wall is dated 1583, marked by a datestone at the peak of the gable, and features a 4-light square-headed window with hollow chamfered mullions, a transom, and a hood mould with star label stops. There are blocked 14th-century moulded nave doors to the north.

The chancel, also from the 14th century, includes two 2-light north windows with pairs of mouchettes and single daggers, a 3-light east window with similar motifs within three soufflets, and two 2-light south windows with similar motifs within single soufflets. A 14th-century priest's door is present, along with a 15th-century porch that has a later brick parvis dated 1743 by tie ends. The porch features diagonal buttresses, a flushwork plinth, a moulded entrance, and two square-headed traceried windows.

Inside, the nave boasts a fine 9-bay hammerbeam roof with roll moulded wall plates, butt purlins, wall braces, and spandrel tracery. The 15th-century chancel arch has three-shaft responds and two shallow moulded orders. The 17th-century chancel roof consists of five bays with ashlaring, butt-purlins, collars, and wind bracing. There is a trilobe piscina with a 17th-century panelled and fluted wooden sedile beside it. Some restored 15th-century benches feature poppy heads, arm rest figures, and pierced traceried backs. The square font, dating from around 1200, stands on four columns (one of which is octagonal) with cushion capitals. Its bowl is adorned with semicircular headed, 2-centred, and trilobe arcading on three sides, and a mandorla with foliage carving flanked by rosettes on the fourth side.

Local climate

Church of St Mary receives an average of 740 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 73% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 88% 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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