Church Of St Genevieve

Church of St Genevieve

A parish church rebuilt in 1676 by Lord Arlington on the foundations of a medieval church. The building stands on a cruciform plan with a west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, north and south transepts, and a vestry to the south of the chancel.

The exterior is rendered and lined with freestone quoins and dressings, beneath slate roofs. The west tower appears to retain a medieval core and rises in four stages with diagonal buttresses to all four corners and a pierced parapet with corner pinnacles. Louvred window openings occupy the top two stages on all four sides, with a louvred window on the second stage of the west side only; all are framed with the same Classical arched form. The remainder of the exterior displays rusticated and chamfered quoins, plain parapets, and two-light windows with round arches and a circle over (Venetian tracery). Circular windows light the clerestory, and a simple single-light east window with rounded head terminates the chancel.

Entry to the church is through the west end of the tower via panelled double doors in a semi-circular arched surround, approached up a rounded flight of steps. Matching entries on the north and south sides have been blocked. The inner entrance doorway through the east wall of the tower is similar but higher and more ornate than the outer doorway, with an entablature surmounted by a moulded cornice and plaster modelled Royal Arms.

The interior is distinguished by cross-vaulted roofs over the base of the tower, nave, crossing and chancel, with plaster bands of guilloche ornament along the groins and acanthus-leaf capitals. Round the four arches of the crossing are wider plaster panels decorated with formalised flowers in relief. The aisles, in two bays, extend the full length of the nave. The eastern bay of the south aisle contains a large wall monument to Lord Arlington (died 1685) and an ornate plaster ceiling decorated with fruit and flowers in high relief; this bay served as the family pew. On each side of the south transept window the reveals are painted with panels of formalised foliage, which have been reproduced in high relief in plaster panels down the sides of the chancel arch.

All interior woodwork dates to the late seventeenth century. Low box-pews occupy the nave and transepts, featuring sunk fielded panels with raised moulded surrounds, double hinges and brass knobs. The low screen with openwork carving, the splendid pulpit (formerly with a sounding-board), and the reredos all display fine ornate carving in the style of Grinling Gibbons. Four early sixteenth-century brasses from the medieval church are set into the floor of the chancel.

Late nineteenth-century alterations include replacement of the font and communion rails, and a carved panel of the Last Supper was added to the reredos. The church contains memorials to the Dukes of Grafton and other members of the Fitzroy family in stained glass (notably the north transept window of circa 1865 to the fifth Duke), marble, and in small ornate brass panels on the walls. A photograph in the nave documents the interior before 1875, and a framed copy of the permit issued to Lord Arlington by the Bishop of Norwich to take down and rebuild the church is displayed in the building.