Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a parish church of 15th-century and 1824 construction, located on the east side of Congham Road in Hillington. The building is constructed of uncoursed flint with some Sandringham sandstone and carstone, with stone dressings and pantile roofing.

The church comprises a west tower, nave (which now incorporates the former south aisle), chancel, and a north chapel to the chancel.

The three-stage west tower dates to around 1434 and features diagonal buttresses with flushwork and a brick embattled parapet. The tower has a 19th-century west doorway with a four-centred arch and Gothick panelled door, and a 19th-century three-light west window with Decorated tracery. A narrow stair turret projects to the north. The second stage contains small cusp-headed single lights. The bell openings have three lights with panel tracery, though a mullion has been lost to the west and north faces, with these openings now filled with honeycombed brick.

The nave dates to 1824 and incorporates the former south aisle, creating a unified interior space. Both north and south sides feature a dentil cornice, with three openings in cast iron surrounds. These openings contain three-light windows with panel tracery. Large blocks of carstone and Sandringham sandstone form the base of the south aisle.

The chancel was restored in 1892 and is constructed mainly of Sandringham sandstone with plain tiles. It has diagonal buttresses, blocked doorways to north and south (each with a buttress), and two 19th-century two-light openings with panel tracery. A five-light 19th-century east window with panel tracery is set below a string course and above a pointed stone niche.

The north chapel, added in the 19th century, is built in broken flint with a moulded brick cornice and plain tiles. It features angle buttresses, gable parapets and a cross, and has a large north three-light window with Decorated tracery.

Interior features include a nave and south aisle now unified by a coved ceiling, with a polygonal respond of the former arcade at the west end. The chancel arch of 1892 rises from stiff-leaf corbels. The chancel roof arch is braced with wind braces, Tudor flower frieze, and angel corbels.

The tall 15th-century tower arch features polygonal shafts supporting chamfered mouldings with continuous hollow chamfers and outer slender round shafts. The tower stair door is ledged and battened with a 15th-century arch head (renewed). An octagonal 15th-century font stands beneath the chancel arch, originally from the Church of St Mary, Islington, Norfolk, and features alternate blank arcade and shields on its faces.

The north chapel contains a 19th-century hammer beam roof. An oak panelled pulpit with an arched curved hand rail, possibly part of a three-decker pulpit, is present. The organ dates to 1756 by J. Snetzler and features a panelled mahogany case with classical ornamental beading and Rococo gilded woodwork decoration, with reversed key colours.

The church contains numerous monuments. Three 18th-century marble altar tombs in the north chapel commemorate members of the ffolkes family. A north chancel mural monument of 1611 honours Richard Hovel and his wife, along with their son Richard (died 1653) and his wife, executed in alabaster with Renaissance arches and two pairs of figures facing each other across faldstools. Eleven Tournai marble ledger slabs, some heraldic, pave the chancel. Two large mural marble tablets in the south chancel commemorate Mary Browne (1699–1763) with fluted Ionic pilasters and segmental head, and Sir William Browne with plain open pilasters, open pediment and relief roundel, both inscribed "Sir WB Archit". A 17th-century wooden cupboard in the north-west nave contains three open panels, each with three rows of turned bars. A mural marble monument in the south nave, dated 1826 and signed by H. Hopper, depicts the life-size figure of Lady Lucretia Georgiana Browne West holding her posthumous son; she died in Bombay shortly after her son's birth.