Church Of St Mary

Church of St. Mary, Snettisham

Parish church. Constructed in the late 14th century in the Decorated style, representing possibly the finest example of this style in Norfolk. The building may be connected with Edward III's grant of the manor to John of Gaunt. Built of flint with stone dressings, lead roofs, and a stone spire. Originally cruciform in plan, though the chancel was demolished by Sir Wymond Carye before approximately 1600, and the north transept was reduced in 1597. The church was restored in 1856 by architect Frederick Preedy.

The building comprises a nave with west galilee porch, clerestory, north and south aisles, a crossing tower with spire, and a south transept. The west front is tripartite, consisting of the nave gable and lean-to aisles with a central tripartite porch. The exterior is of knapped flint with stone dressings featuring three buttressed Decorated piers with continuous chamfers supporting three stone ribbed vaults terminated against the west wall with keel mouldings. A stone seat runs against the wall, and a 19th-century west door is present. Above is a slated chamber containing two lancets. The west window is notably fine, displaying six lights with complex Reticulation and flowing mouchettes. Two flanking buttressed turrets with square-faced set-off buttresses at the corners expand above as octagonal turrets; the south turret contains an internal staircase, while the north turret features four corbelled squinch arches. Both turrets have battlemented collars at the base of crowning conical turrets.

The aisle west windows are of three lights: the south features three trefoils, the north a four-leaf petal pattern with trefoil above. This pattern repeats alternately in the four three-light windows of the five bays of both the north and south aisles, both of which are buttressed with north and south doors in the second bay from the west. The clerestory contains ten bays with alternating almost round-headed arched two-light windows and circular windows with three segmental hexafoils. Tracery on the south side is largely a 19th-century recutting. A stone parapet runs along the nave roof.

The south transept comprises three bays with a five-light south window flanked by angle set-off buttresses and two 14th-century spout-heads. The east side contains one two-light window, one three-light window, and one blocked window, while the west side has one blocked window and two external memorial tablets.

The chancel was demolished, though its line remains visible and the north-east angle still stands. A mid-19th-century window was inserted in the former east arch of the crossing. The north transept was replaced by an additional north transept bay with a two-light "Y" tracery window on the east and a three-light intersected tracery window on the south, set in knapped and galletted flint wall. These windows are presumed to be re-used rather than marking an earlier beginning to the fabric. A date stone bears the inscription: "John Cremer and Thomas Banyard, church wardens weare ye townmen of Snettisham. Thys ille (aisle?) did repair Anno Do 1595".

The fine central tower and spire shows earlier roof lines. Square-faced buttresses occupy the corners. Each face displays tripartite partly blank, partly open tracery divisions. The west face features two outer arches with trefoil heads and a centre opening with a two-light trefoil-headed belfry window. On the north, south, and east sides blank tracery panels continue into the lower stage as four blank tracery panels with trefoils enclosing triangular heads, with set-off buttresses between them. Set-off buttresses at the angles terminate above the parapet in octagonal sections with spirelets and flying buttresses springing to the spire with two ranks of gabled dormer windows. The spire was last rebuilt in 1895 and stands 175 feet in height.

Interior: The five-bay north and south nave arcades possess composite piers with four main shafts, four thin filleted shafts, and five hollows, supporting tall arches with stone seats at their bases. The crossing arches with half piers correspond with those of the nave. The aisles feature transverse half arches at their east ends. The ten-bay nave roof is double framed with arched braces and collars, partly rebuilt in 1899.

The church contains a 15th-century stone font with moulded capitals and abaci connecting with supports, and a 15th-century pulpit largely restored in the late 19th century. Chancel furniture created as a 1939-1945 memorial was designed by Cecil Howard of South Walsham.

Monuments include: in the south aisle, a woman of circa 1560 on a palimpsest of circa 1500; in the north aisle, John Cremer, churchwarden, and his family, dated 1610. The north transept contains a classical monument to Sir Wymond Carye (died 1612), featuring a recumbent alabaster effigy under a coffered arch with two columns, a strapwork cartouche above, and original iron railings to the base. The south transept contains the vaults and mausoleum of the Styleman family of Snettisham Old Hall and Hunstanton Hall, with monuments dating from 1680 to 1803; one monument dated 1807 is signed by Richard Cooke.

Stained glass includes the west window by William Warrington (1846), south aisle west window by Michael O'Connor (1861), south aisle transept window by Frederick Preedy (1858), and a north aisle transept window possibly by Preedy (1861).