Church of St Benedict is a Grade II* listed building in the The Broads Authority local planning authority area, England. First listed on 16 April 1955. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Benedict
- WRENN ID
- salt-rood-frost
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- The Broads Authority
- Constituency
- North Norfolk MP: Steff Aquarone (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 16 April 1955
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Benedict, Church Road, Horning, North Norfolk
- OS grid reference
- TG 354 165
- Coordinates
- 52.69544, 1.48357
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St. Benedict is a parish church largely of the 13th and 14th centuries, with later additions and alterations. Bequests were made in 1490 and 1524 for the construction of a tower, and the north aisle was demolished in 1721. The church was restored in 1874. It is built of flint with ashlar dressings and slate roofs.
The west tower has three stages, incorporating stepped diagonal buttresses. The plinth course features flushwork decoration. A three-light Perpendicular window is situated in the west face. The ringing chamber has sound holes with four-petal tracery set diagonally. String courses divide the tower stages, and there's a crenellated parapet above belfry windows featuring two-light cusped reticulated tracery. A staircase is located to the south-east. A two-light reticulated window is visible in the west face of the north aisle. The south porch is gabled, accessed via a doorway with both chamfered and hollow-chamfered sections, with cusped side lights. The inner south door has multiply wave moulding. Three square-headed two-light south aisle windows are present. Four similar two-light clerestory windows extend to both the north and south sides. The east window of the south aisle is a Perpendicular style three-light, and the chancel features two two-light windows; one is Perpendicular with a four-centred arch, while the other has reticulated tracery. A chamfered Priest's door, retaining a dog tooth hood mould from the 13th-century structure, is also present. A lean-to vestry sits against the north wall of the chancel, with a two-light Perpendicular window mirroring the earlier style. The blocked north nave arcades have been re-set with three two-light ogeed windows, and there’s a chamfered north door.
Internally, a four-bay octagonal south arcade, with moulded bases and capitals supporting double chamfered arches, is visible. A four-bay circular arcade, from the 13th century, is embedded within the north nave wall, demonstrating circular moulded capitals under chamfered arches and featuring clerestory windows over the arch apexes. The tall tower arch has jamb mouldings with bowtell and casements and polygonal responds. The double chamfered chancel arch rests on circular responds and polygonal capitals. A four-centred rood stair doorway is incorporated into the south pier, leading to steps. The nave roof, dating from 1874, is characterized by arched braces extending to collars over false hammerbeams, with the hammerbeams supported by further arched braces dropping to crenellated 19th-century corbels. A similar roof design is present in the south aisle. A rectangular cusped piscina is located in the south aisle, and a font from the early 14th century is octagonal with a splayed stem, annulated columns and a bowl featuring alternating panels of paired trefoiled arches and cusped squares, topped with billet crenellations. Several 16th-century poppyhead bench ends remain in the nave and four 16th-century chancel stall bench ends display lively figurative or animal carvings; these include depictions of a pelican, a scene of devils forcing souls into Hell, and writhing snakes persecuting lost souls. These stalls have good figurative armrests. A renewed cusped piscina is also present in the chancel, which shares a similar roof design with the nave.
Local climate
Church of St Benedict receives an average of 750 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 72% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 50% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 11 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 89% of listed buildings. Of these, 6 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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