Church Of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

This is a parish church at Harpley, Norfolk, with building work spanning the 13th to 15th centuries. The structure shows evidence of 13th-century work in the interior and south aisle, a 14th-century tower and chancel, and 15th-century rebuilding of the nave and north aisle with an added south porch.

The church is constructed in rubble flint with knapped and squared flint and freestone dressings. It has leaded roofs to the nave and aisles, and a glazed chancel roof. The plan comprises a south-west tower, south porch, a five-bay nave with aisles on both sides, and a three-bay chancel with a north vestry.

The four-stage south-west tower sits on a stone plinth and features a decorative datestone at the fourth string course. Quoined angle buttresses with offsets support the corners. The belfry windows are four two-light openings with Decorated tracery, and the parapet is battlemented. A south-east buttress is expanded as canted tower-stacks.

The nave's west gable displays a fine large five-light Perpendicular west window with five ogee-headed lower lights, a central transom, and elaborately intersected spandrel tracery. The five-bay Perpendicular north aisle includes one west window and five north three-light tracery windows, a Perpendicular north door, and a five-bay Perpendicular clerestorey with five-light windows.

The south aisle has a complex building history. It contains three south-side windows dating to around 1500 with two-light 'Y' tracery, one five-light stepped lancet east window under a single arch from circa 1300, and a 14th-century two-light window at the south-west junction with the tower.

The elaborate two-bay Perpendicular south porch has two centred outer arches and a gable featuring panelling and three niches. It has a stone plinth, angled set-off buttresses, a stone parapet and gable with angle spirelets. The interior and exterior contain two pairs of two-light Perpendicular windows with two-centred arches. The inner arch is richly moulded and frames a fine 15th-century oak door with an outer band of niched saints, a tracery upper spandrel, and a lower ogee-arched wicket door with two angels and tracery panels under a central transom division.

The aisle was heightened during the incumbency of John Brewe, Rector from 1389 to 1421, who was clerk and chaplain to Sir Robert Knollys, builder of Sculthorpe Church in Norfolk. The freestone battlemented parapet features panelling, blank tracery, and coats of arms mainly connected to the Knollys family. A kneeling angel adorns the west end, and a priest in rochet with dry and book appears at the east.

The fine three-bay chancel and north vestry were added by John de Gurney, Rector from 1294 to 1332 and also patron of Iwing. The south side has one two-light window with an ogee head, one two-light with a barbed trefoil head, both under two-centred arches, and one three-light window with Recticulated tracery under an ogee-arch head. A fine ogee-arched subcusped priest's door is present. Three south buttresses with offsets support the chancel, which has a stone plinth and strong string course. The east gable, with set-off buttresses, contains a three-light Decorated east window, probably a replacement of 1878, with a roundel containing six trefoils in the head. The parapet gable is elaborately crotchetted and leads to a steeply pitched roof. A 14th-century north vestry adjoins the chancel.

The interior features Perpendicular five-bay north and south arcades with octagonal columns on octagonal bases and capitals, with double hollow-chamfered arches. The nave has a fine 15th-century roof with arched braced principals on wall posts, elaborate wall plate and ridge collars with angels. The north aisle roof has 15th-century moulded principals and wall posts on coved heads. The south aisle roof retains only 15th-century principals. Fifteenth-century pierced back poppyhead benches line the church.

A high Victorian font and a fine high Victorian four-evangelist pulpit and reading desk are present. The south aisle contains three continuously moulded arches leading to the tower door. A fine circa 1300 Early English sedilia and piscina survive, featuring colonettes, cusped arches, and pierced spandrels. Fourteenth-century stained glass remains in situ in the east window.

The chancel contains 13th-century piers with stiff-leaf capitals and a two-centred Decorated arch above. A door provides access to the chancel roof space. A large semi-octagonal internal rood stairs stands on the north aisle side of the chancel arch. A fine 14th-century rood screen with repanelled panels (1865) features rich tracery in the upper lights and a central ogee arch. The chancel is finished in high Victorian stucco, possibly from 1878, and the roof dates to 1878. A matrix of bars marks the grave of John de Gurney with a legible inscription. A fine heavily recut cusped ogee-arched door on the north side has open-work spandrels and a 15th-century battlemented crested top. A 15th-century four-centred arch Easter Sepulchre is also present. The south side contains a mutilated Decorated sedilia with a single battlemented capital and elaborately cusped arch, and a Decorated piscina with triangular-headed arches, floriated spandrels, and some diapering.