Church Of The Holy Innocents

TL 86 NE GREAT BARTON CHURCH ROAD

1/5 Church of the Holy - Innocents 14.7.55 - I

Parish church. C13 and later; restored in 1850's. Nave, chancel, north and south aisles, south porch and west tower, in random flint with freestone dressings: the aisles and clerestory are faced in a mixture of black knapped flint and small freestone blocks, evenly set: stone facings to buttresses and crenellated stone parapets to aisles and nave; slate roofs. C15 porch with red brick and trefoil arcading to the base; crenellated gabled parapet; diagonal buttresses; rendered and lined south face with a large sundial over the entry; a gargoyle head on east and west, and 2-light windows. 8 perpendicular windows to clerestorey. The C14 south aisle has a 2-light east window with flowing tracery, and Perpendicular windows on the south; C15 north aisle with 4 gargoyle water-heads. C13 chancel: a simple priest's door on the south side with pointed arch and nook-shafts, and beside it an arched tomb recess with a heavy gable on corbels; north and south windows with plate tracery and a lozenge, quatrefoiled far back, and a 3-light east window with lancets and circles at head, also quatrefoiled far back; on the south-west a blocked low-side window. At the east end, unusual polygonal buttresses with stone pinnacles. Fine west tower in 4 stages divided by string-courses; a chequerwork base of stone and black knapped flint; diagonal buttresses on west. The walling has some small red bricks and stone blocks mixed with flint rubble. Stair turret with a conical roof projecting on the south side. A simple west doorway with continuous moulding; a 3-light window with panel tracery to each face of the top stage. An impressive parapet with flushwork decoration (cf. similarities with St. Mary's, Rougham): stepped and panelled crenellation; quatrefoil frieze. The interior of the nave has a simple, shallow-pitched single hammerbeam roof in 8 bays, corresponding to the bays of the clerestorey: folded-leaf decoration along the purlins and ridge-piece; the hammer posts supported by headless recumbent figures. Arcades in 4 bays: early C14 on south, with one octagonal and 2 circular piers; perpendicular on north. Fragments of medieval glass in the heads of all 3 windows in the north aisle. Benches with traceried ends and poppyheads, some C15, but many reproductions of 1856. Simple octagonal C13 font, supported on a central column surrounded by 4 outer columns; a tall C19 carved and traceried wooden cover in East Anglian style. Chancel with a simple plastered keel roof; remains of pinnacled C13 piscina and sedilia. The other fittings are C19. Various wall memorials to members of the Bunbury family.

Listing NGR: TL8899166042