Church of St. Catherine

Church of St. Catherine

This is a parish church located in Ludham with significant medieval work. The west tower and chancel date from the 14th century, while the nave and aisles were built in the 15th century. Bequests to new work are recorded from 1466, when the tower was also altered. The church underwent restoration in 1861 and 1891.

The building is constructed of quaternary and quarry flint with Lincolnshire limestone and Bath stone ashlar dressings, supplemented with some brickwork. The chancel roof is slate; the remainder is lead-covered.

The three-stage west tower has diagonal west buttresses and side east buttresses. It features a restored two-light mouchette west window and lancets to the ringing chamber. A clock face to the north, pedimented and dated 1762, occupies the tower. The belfry windows have two-light Y tracery; the tracery has been replaced with timber and louvred work. A crenellated parapet crowns the tower.

The north aisle's west window consists of three cusped lancets. The aisle windows generally have three lights with Perpendicular tracery, except for the window east of the south porch, which has four lights and is transomed. Stepped side buttresses, diagonal at the corners, support the aisles. Clerestory windows, three lights each with Perpendicular tracery, sit under four-centred arches.

The two-storey south porch has diagonal buttresses with sides rising to polygonal turrets. An arched doorway in a square surround has carved spandrels. The gabled roof sits above a plain parapet. Above the door are two cusped statuary niches with nodding ogees flanking a central two-light parvis window. The parvis has cinquefoiled side windows. A polygonal stair turret to the north-west incorporates flushwork.

The north porch is gabled and constructed of coursed knapped flint. It has diagonal buttresses and two-light depressed Perpendicular side lights. The entrance is a multiply wave moulded four-centred arch beneath an ogeed statuary niche with finial. The façade is decorated with two tiers of flushwork cinquefoil arcading.

The chancel is supported by stepped side buttresses, diagonal to the east, and is built of knapped and coursed flint. It contains one 19th-century three-light Perpendicular south window and a two-light 14th-century window with a tracery head consisting of a single encircled quatrefoil. An arched Priest's door opens from it. The east window has five lights with reticulated tracery. Two two-light 14th-century divergent mouchette windows occupy the north wall.

Interior

The interior has a five-bay octagonal arcade on high bases. The piers have polygonal capitals beneath double hollow chamfered arches, with clerestory windows positioned over the arch apexes. The tower arch is double hollow chamfered, springing from semi-circular responds with circular capitals. The chancel arch has polygonal responds with capitals carved with grotesques to the north and seaweed foliage to the south; the arch itself is double chamfered.

The nave roof is a hammerbeam roof, probably of 1466. The hammerbeams alternate between wall posts and all sit on arched braces. Polygonal wall posts drop to corbels carved with angels bearing shields. Wall arches rise to ashlaring. Hammerbeam spandrels are pierced above and below. Arched braces rise to the ridge piece. One tier of butt purlins is present, and all timbers are moulded. The aisle roofs have arched braces to a central purlin; outer wall posts rest on head corbels.

The chancel screen has three bays on either side of an arched opening. The middle rail is inscribed: "Pray for the soule of John (Salmon) and Cycyly his wyf that gave forten pounde and for alle other benefactors made in the year of ower Lord God MCCCCLXXXXIII" (1493). The tracery head consists of crocketed ogees within cusped arches. The dado has two painted panels per bay depicting, from left to right, Mary Magdalen, St. Stephen, St. Edmund (King of East Anglia), Henry VI, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, St. Jerome, Edward the Confessor, St. Walstan, St. Lawrence, and St. Apollonia. The first four panels on the south side are by a different hand. The painting quality of these panels makes them an important example of 15th-century English art. The remainder of the dado is traceried and gilded. The west side of the screen has free-standing annulated buttresses.

A painted tympanum occupies the chancel arch. The west side shows a Crucifixion; the east side displays the arms of Elizabeth I.

An octagonal 15th-century font features Wild Men against the stem, with angels and seaweed foliage beneath the bowl. The bowl itself has panels carved with the symbols of the four Evangelists.

The church contains numerous 15th-century poppyhead bench ends. Rustic stalls occupy the chancel. The 19th-century chancel roof comprises an undisciplined though not complex composition of arched braces. Ogeed sedilia and piscina with crockets and finials are present.

Eight brasses survive in the nave, the finest being a 1650 brass to R. Barker, a 1633 heart brass to Grace Whitey, and a 1659 brass to Christopher White. All are inscription brasses.