Church Of St Mary

FRAMSDEN THE STREET TM 25 NW 5/61 Church of St Mary 9.12.55

• I

Parish church, medieval. Nave, chancel, west tower, south aisle and south porch. Flint rubble with freestone dressings, mainly plastered. Nave roof slated, chancel roof plaintiled, aisle roof felted. Flat parapetted roofs to porch and tower. Much early/mid C14 work: net traceried windows with 3 good grotesque corbels and matching south doorway in chancel. C14 north and south doorways in nave, the former with disused medieval plank door. The aisle has mid C14 Y-traceried windows and a piscina with shafts and drop-tracery. 5-bay arcade; 4 large grotesque corbels survive from the original aisle roof; the present roof is inscribed with benefactors and dates 1620 and 1676: queen posts and ridge pendants. The chancel has a good early C14 piscina with drop- tracery and an angle-shaft linking with the window cill sedilia. Late C15 tower and porch both with good details: the west doorway has a label incorporating 5 shields with achievements (one missing) and a pair of image niches. Flushwork panels to buttresses, plinth and parapets. A contract with Thomas Aldrich, mason, of South Lopham, dated 1487/8 for the construction of the tower at Helmingham church, refers to the tower at Framsden, implying that Aldrich had recently built it. The outer porch wall is covered in traceried flushwork panels and there are 3 pinnacled image niches over the enriched doorway. The nave was raised in early or mid C16 in red brick with good hoodmoulded clerestory windows; 6-bay double hammerbeam roof with much enrichment. Arch-braced collar beam roof in chancel of C19. Good C15 limestone font, octagonal, with each panel of the bowl bearing lions and angels; further lions support the stem. A fine range of C15 choirstalls: 6 seats in 2 linked sections, 5 with richly-carved misericords; poppyhead ends are marked out for tracery which was never carved. 4 traceried benchends used with C19 benches have tracery of C15 or possibly late C14. A marble wall monument in the aisle to William Stebbing, gent, his wife and son Henry (d.1718). 4 early floor slabs in the chancel, one with C16 type brass indents. Marble floor slabs in the nave; 1678, 1733, 1706, 1737.

Listing NGR: TM2007759734