Church of St. Mary

Church of St. Mary

Parish church on the east side of Black Street in Martham. The building is a remarkable example of late medieval ecclesiastical architecture, with construction spanning the 14th to 19th centuries.

The west tower dates to the later 14th century, whilst the nave and aisles were built in the mid-15th century. The chancel was constructed between 1456 and 1469 by Robert Everard, the architect of Norwich Cathedral spire. The chancel was demolished and rebuilt between 1855 and 1861 by Philip Boyce, at which time the remainder of the church was also restored.

The exterior is built of Quaternary and Quarry flint with Lincolnshire Limestone ashlar dressings and lead roofs. Cinquefoiled flushwork arcading circles the church at plinth level. The four-stage tower is supported on stepped angle buttresses decorated with flushwork panels. The west doorway features double wave moulding beneath a hood mould, whilst the three-light transomed Perpendicular west window, also under a hood mould, extends into the second stage. The ringing chamber has two-light windows to the north, south and west, and the belfry windows are two-light with punched tracery. A clock face sits below the south window. The tower is crowned with a crenellated parapet that conceals a short leaded timber spirelet.

The two-storey gabled south porch has diagonal stepped buttresses and a multiple wave moulded entrance arch with flushwork to left and right. The parvis is illuminated through a three-light mullioned window flanked by one nodding ogee niche on each side. Two-light arched side windows light the porch interior, and a moulded inner doorway provides access. The porch features a tierceron star vault with roll-moulded ribs. A 15th-century south door with carved detail, ironwork and wooden lock survives.

The nave buttresses are stepped. Four three-light Perpendicular windows of rising supermullion type light each aisle, with similar clerestory windows featuring shallower arches. A moulded north doorway provides entry.

The 1855–61 chancel is built with a flushwork plinth course that gives way to chequerwork up to sill level. The buttresses become bulbous below the windows and terminate in gablets. Three two-light Flowing windows light the south side and two the north, with deeply moulded jambs. A sloping-roofed outbuilding stands on the north side. The chancel is lit by an exuberant five-light east window with rosette designs in the tracery head.

Interior

The tall, moulded tower arch is decorated with one moulding that displays suspended shields. The five-bay arcade comprises lozenge piers with continuous casement mouldings sweeping past reduced capitals to east and west. Rolled colonnettes rise from the piers to support stone corbels above a string course. On these corbels rest timber wall posts that support a 19th-century hammerbeam roof with pierced arch braces rising to hammerbeams terminating in carved angels. Aisle windows are set within wall arcading.

A 15th-century octagonal font has an ogeed-panelled stem carved with relief figures of saints. The bowl is divided into panels depicting the seven Sacraments beneath depressed ogee arches, with an eighth panel showing the Last Judgement.

The chancel arch has colonnettes rising to stone angels beneath foliate corbels, with black marble colonnettes continuing to a second foliate corbel. The arch itself is sub-cusped and cinquefoiled, creating a form that does not read as arch-like. The chancel has a dado, through which taper corbels rise into colonnettes positioned between each window. These colonnettes rise to roof corbels, with wall arches peeling off to frame the windows.

A monument to Reverend Jonathan Dawson, erected in 1861, takes the form of an elaborate Easter sepulchre. A polygonal stone pulpit with cusped arched recesses and foliate carving is accessed via a curving flight of steps. A simple wrought iron rood screen is also present. A brass to Robert Alen in the chancel, dated 1487, takes the form of a heart with an inscription.