Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a medieval parish church. It comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, a south aisle, and a south porch. The building is constructed of flint rubble with freestone dressings, and the walls are mainly plastered. The nave roof is slated, the chancel roof is plaintiled, and the aisle roof is felted. Flat, parapetted roofs top the porch and tower.

Significant work was undertaken in the early to mid 14th century, including net traceried windows featuring three grotesque corbels, and a matching south doorway in the chancel. There are also 14th-century north and south doorways in the nave, the north doorway retaining a disused medieval plank door. The south aisle has mid-14th century Y-traceried windows and a piscina with shafts and drop tracery. A 5-bay arcade is present, and four large grotesque corbels remain from the original aisle roof; the current roof displays inscriptions indicating benefactors and dates of 1620 and 1676, with queen posts and ridge pendants. The chancel includes a good early 14th-century piscina with drop tracery and an angle shaft linking to the window sill and sedilia.

The late 15th-century tower and porch exhibit fine details; the west doorway features a label incorporating five shields with achievements (one missing) and a pair of image niches. Flushwork panels decorate the buttresses, plinth, and parapets. Historical records show a contract from 1487/8 with Thomas Aldrich, a mason from South Lopham, referencing the tower at Framsden, suggesting he had recently built it. The outer porch wall displays traceried flushwork panels, with three pinnacled image niches above the richly ornamented doorway.

The nave was raised in the early or mid 16th century using red brick, incorporating good hood-moulded clerestory windows. It features a 6-bay double hammerbeam roof with extensive enrichment. The chancel has an arch-braced collar beam roof dating to the 19th century.

A good 15th-century limestone font is octagonal, with each panel of the bowl depicting lions and angels, supported by further lions on the stem. A fine range of 15th-century choirstalls consists of six seats in two linked sections, five with richly carved misericords, with poppyhead ends marked out for tracery which was never completed. Four traceried benchends, used with 19th-century benches, display tracery of the 15th or possibly late 14th century. A marble wall monument in the aisle commemorates William Stebbing, his wife, and son Henry (died 1718). Four early floor slabs are in the chancel, one showing brass indents of the 16th century. Marble floor slabs in the nave are dated 1678, 1733, 1706, and 1737.