Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Ditchingham

This is a parish church of 15th-century date, substantially remodelled and extended in the 19th century. The building is constructed of galleted flint with limestone dressings, though the south wall of the nave and north wall of the chancel are rendered over. The roofing comprises plain tiles on the chancel and porch, 20th-century concrete tiles on the nave, and slate on the aisle and vestry.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, south porch, chancel, north aisle and vestry. The 15th-century square west tower features diagonal staged buttresses with flushwork panels. The base course is particularly notable, decorated with cusped panels containing shields alternating with sacred hearts in crowns of thorns, all set in flushwork. String courses mark the offsets. A polygonal stair turret is positioned at the north-east corner. The tower has square traceried sound openings with shields and three-light bell openings. The stepped parapet carries crocketted corner pinnacles and carved panels set in flushwork. The west doorway features a hood and dripmoulds on headstops, flanked by niches containing figures on pedestals. The 15th-century four-light west window is accompanied by a renewed traceried sound hole with three shields beneath a dripmould above.

The south wall of the nave has staged buttresses in galleted flint with flushwork panels, with the south-west buttress set diagonally. Two three-light 15th-century windows are present, much repaired. The 15th-century south porch was restored by H. Rider Haggard in 1896 and features renewed two-light east and west windows. Diagonal gable buttresses with flushwork panels and a plinth repeating the decorative motifs of the tower base course are present. The gable wall is rendered over. The arch has two continuous chamfers and a hoodmould with fleurons. Above this is a niche with fleuron decoration to the jambs and a cusped head. A square sundial is set in the gable apex. The porch roof, renewed with arch-bracing and wallposts set on old head-corbels, carries a castellated cornice. A 15th-century traceried two-leaf south door stands beneath the arch.

The chancel was much restored in the 19th century. Built of knapped flint, it features two and three-light south windows and a priest's door between the window openings. The 15th-century three-light east window and a 14th-century two-light window at the north-west corner of the north wall are present, though this north wall is rendered over.

The north aisle was added in 1873, comprising three bays with three-light Perpendicular windows and staged buttresses between the bays, with a two-light Perpendicular east window. At the aisle's west end is a polygonal projection for the vestry with a steeply-pitched hipped roof and gabled projection to the west, containing a two-light window and doorway in the north wall and a two-light window in the west gable. A chimney stack with a diagonally-set brick shaft stands on the south-west corner of the aisle, with a weathered base featuring flushwork.

The interior retains a 15th-century nave roof, restored in the 19th century, with principals having arch-braces and wallposts set on head-corbels, with pendants and bosses added at intersections. The north arcade is a 19th-century addition of three bays. A 15th-century tower arch features engaged shafts and polygonal capitals, and the nave walls taper towards the tower. The chancel arch dates to 1874 and has short shafts set on massive corbels. The screen is much restored but retains some 15th-century work. The 19th-century chancel roof is arch-braced with bosses and pendants, painted in 1862-3 by Mrs W. Scudamore, the rector's wife.

The church contains brasses to Roger Bozard (died 1505) and to Philip (died 1490) and Margery Bozard. A wall monument in the south-east corner of the chancel commemorates Samuel Pyecroft (died 1709). The floor contains 17th and 18th-century ledger slabs in the nave and chancel. The north-east aisle window is a memorial to Sir Henry Rider Haggard (died 1925), who was a church warden while resident in Ditchingham.

A 19th-century stone pulpit is polygonal with traceried panels and stone steps. The 15th-century font is octagonal, decorated with shields and roses in traceried panels around the bowl, with head corbels below the bowl and shafts around the stem, all standing on an octagonal step with a quatrefoiled riser.

In the north-west wall of the nave is a First World War memorial erected in 1920, comprising panelled black marble and a life-size bronze effigy of a soldier designed by Derwent Wood.