Church of St Maragret is a Grade I listed building in the Breckland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 30 May 1960. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Maragret
- WRENN ID
- former-corbel-heath
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Breckland
- Constituency
- Mid Norfolk MP: George Freeman (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 30 May 1960
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Maragret, Sporle Road, Little Dunham
- OS grid reference
- TF 863 129
- Coordinates
- 52.68241, 0.75542
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St. Margaret is a parish church located in Little Dunham, dating from the medieval period and later. It is constructed of flint, partly rendered, with ashlar dressings, and features black pantile and slate roofs. The church includes a west tower, a nave with a north aisle, a south porch, and a chancel. The tower is built in the Perpendicular style, characterized by diagonal western buttresses and a flat stair turret projection on the south side. The west doorway is moulded and adorned with carved head label stops, while above it is a three-light Perpendicular window, quatrefoil soundholes, two-light cusped bell-openings, and a plain parapet.
The south door, dating from the 13th century, has dying arch mouldings and one order of colonnettes with bell capitals, along with crowned head label stops and a female head in a quatrefoil above the doorway. The south wall of the nave and chancel features three 13th-century lancets, a two-light Perpendicular window with an embattled transom, and a similar Victorian replica. The north aisle contains three partially restored two-light curvilinear 14th-century windows, a double lancet to the west, and a triple lancet (probably re-set) to the east. The north aisle originally extended alongside the chancel, leaving two blocked arches and a simple piscina. The east window is a Victorian Geometric design.
Inside, the church has a 13th-century three-bay nave arcade and a former three-bay chancel arcade, now reduced to one bay. The fine quadrilobe piers have bell capitals and arches of two hollow chamfered orders. A carved corbel depicting a human head with horns, flanked by foliage, supports the westernmost chancel arcade. The chancel arch is no longer present. The 15th-century tower arch features facetted responds and capitals. There is a simple nave piscina and a 13th-century angle piscina-cum-sedilia in the chancel, which includes a bell capital on a colonnette and a shaped armrest. Remnants of medieval decorative paintwork can be seen on the arches of the two blocked bays of the chancel north arcade. The church has group value with the Old Rectory.
Local climate
Church of St Maragret 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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