Church of St. Mary

TG 13 SE 5/33

ERPINGHAM Church of St. Mary

4.10.60

I

Parish church. Medieval. Flint (Quaternary) with Lincolnshire Limestone dressings, brick. Slate, pantile and lead roofs. West tower, nave, south aisle, south porch, chancel.

Embattled tower of three stages (its building mentioned in a will of 1485). Basecourse with stone panels; diagonal buttresses. West door having shafts with polygonal abaci. West window of three-lights with panel tracery under hood mould, alternate brick and flint voussoirs. Square ringing-chamber openings with tracery. Bell-openings of two-lights with panel tracery under four-centred arches with hood moulds. Battlements with stone panels reading ERPINGHAM, the letters separated by crowned Ms and shields with Instruments of the Passion. West window of south aisle with reticulated tracery. Four bay buttressed nave, south aisle with diagonal buttresses; three three-light windows with panel tracery and staggered transoms. One buttress and top of aisle wall in brick of 1980's. Lead roof. North nave has blocked doorway with continuous moulding. Two C19 two-light windows; one square-headed two-light late medieval window. Slate roof. Chancel, buttressed to south, with diagonal buttresses. Priest's door and two three-light windows with panel tracery to south, one with embattled transom. To north, a cusped Y-tracery window and one three-light Perpendicular window also with embattled transom. East window C19 of four-lights. Buttressed porch with polygonal shafts and abaci to doorway; cusped niche over. Two blocked square headed two-light windows. Nave doorway has continuous moulding with hood mould over. Stoop to right.

Interior. Polygonal shafts to nave arcade. C19 nave roof. Arch braced roof to south aisle. Tower arch has attached shafts with hollows. Polygonal shafts to chancel arch. Squint of two cusped lights with square head, also enclosing two encircled quatrefoils. Drop-sill sedilia and shaft to piscina with square hood and two encircled quatrefoils. Brass to Sir John de Erpingham c1415 in south aisle. Octagonal font from St. Benedict's, Norwich with much mutilated panels. East window has C15 and C16 Flemish stained glass, said to have come from Blickling Hall.

Listing NGR: TG1987131251