Churches

St Mary, Attleborough

First appeared in Let's Talk! Norfolk, January 2005

Breathtaking. For once the word is literally accurate.

Anyone who loves medieval churches, or anyone who has been following this series so far, knows that Norfolk has the finest rood screens in England. But I was still unprepared for Attleborough, where it was one step in from the porch, one step back in amazement.

St Mary's - or the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to give it its full medieval dedication - is a large busy church at the heart of a small busy town. Not merely dominating the main street, but at the heart of the community too, with a new and well-equipped community hall attached discreetly to the hidden south side.

In very few places do you get such a sense of continuity from the Middle Ages right down to the present day.

And nowhere else do you get a screen like this one. Built in about 1500 of solid oak, it stretches the full 52ft width of the church, across both north and south aisles as well as the spacious nave. It is also the tallest continuous wooden screen I have seen, and much of it still has its original paint, though now much faded.

Though many other screens have more painted panels of saints, here the figures of the Virgin and Child, Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist are fully life-size. Other panels depict St Thomas of Canterbury, St Bartholomew and the Holy Trinity.

Along the front of the gorgeously carved loft that tops the screen are 24 shields representing the English and Welsh bishoprics. These highly unusual paintings date from 1615: the lettering of earlier, probably Elizabethan, biblical texts is visible around them, and in some places actually shows through.

Above the screen, and just as stunning, are the

substantial vestiges of a large wall-painting, also of about 1500. Once this was dominated by a cross, but this has largely been obliterated by two Norman-style windows which were punched through in 1909, at a time when the painting was covered over.

Among the surviving painted figures are two "angels" whose solid appearance shows they were modeled on actors in costume, probably from a medieval miracle play.