Church Of St Mary

FLIXTON BY BUNGAY CHURCH ROAD TM 38 NW 2/4 Church of St. Mary 1.9.53

• II*

Parish church. Although a church is mentioned at Flixton in the Domesday survey (1086) little trace of that remains; the present building was almost completely reconstructed at various times in the C19. Black knapped flint with lavish stone dressings; lead roofs with battlemented guttering. Nave, chancel, north aisle, west tower and south porch. The west tower, 1856, by Salvin, replaces the earlier tower, said to be Saxon, which collapsed. It is built in a Saxo-Norman style, with 2-light Saxon windows to the top stage and a helm roof, plaintiled, and surmounted by a weathercock. Salvin considered that there was sufficient evidence from the earlier remains to postulate a helm roof, of which only one authentic example, at Sompting, Sussex, exists in England; a sketch of the building made by Isaac Johnson in 1818 does not support the assumption. Nave of 1861, with gabled buttresses in C14 style and 2-light traceried windows. Chancel of 1894 in an oppressive Romanesque style with single-light round-headed and circular windows and a Lombardic frieze below the eaves. The interior of the nave and the north aisle have benches with good poppy-head bench-ends. The early C14 north arcade is the only part of the medieval structure to survive: in 4 bays, with piers of quatrefoil section and arches with 2 wave mouldings. Small C16 octagonal pulpit on a slender base, with a double row of square panels, some with heraldic carving, some with linenfold. On the nave floor, a small brass to Elizabeth, wife of John Tasburgh, d.1583, and various black ledger slabs, those of the C17 to members of the Tasburgh family, those of later date to the Adairs. 2 tablets on the south wall of the nave, one to William Adair, d.1783, with a relief of the Good Samaritan. 3 C18 marble and stone tablets on the north wall. At the back of the north aisle, a small octagonal memorial chapel in Early English style with groined stone roof, erected in 1895 to the memory of Theodosia, Lady Waveney, d.1871. It contains a life-size kneeling figure of Lady Waveney, a major work of John Bell.

Listing NGR: TM3121186693