All Saints, Dickleburgh
All Saints at Dickleburgh sits on the main road through the village, its east end poking out of the foliage towards the roadside to announce its presence. At first sight this church is rather lost amongst the trees of its pleasant churchyard, revealing itself in parts, but is actually rather a grand building.
Dickleburgh church is one of those impressive 15th century East Anglian churches with a fine display of windows along the clerestorey and aisles on either side below. There are playful touches of flint flushwork on the tower parapet but mainly on the south porch which makes for an enticing entrance.
Within there is a great sense of space, the aisles are of a substantial volume and separated from the nave by rows of slender columns. The overall sense it has to be said is that the Victorian restoration has left its mark in many of the furnishings and the Hardman glass in the east window, but there are several older features that are really enjoyable here. The chancel has some interesting memorials and the font at the opposite end is a handsome example of the typical local design of the 15th century , but pride of place here goes to the late medieval woodwork separating chancel and nave: only the lowest part of the former rood screen survives but it the four decorative rosette panels that comprise its two flanks are a riot of delightful (and often humorous) ornamentation with all kinds of figures, faces and animals, sensitively restored with something like their original colouring. It is a real joy and the greatest treasure of this church.
We found Dickleburgh church open and welcoming on our late morning (pre Covid) visit and thoroughly enjoyed it, though others have not always been so lucky, as Simon's entry on the Norfolk Churches site below reveals!
All Saints, Dickleburgh
All Saints at Dickleburgh sits on the main road through the village, its east end poking out of the foliage towards the roadside to announce its presence. At first sight this church is rather lost amongst the trees of its pleasant churchyard, revealing itself in parts, but is actually rather a grand building.
Dickleburgh church is one of those impressive 15th century East Anglian churches with a fine display of windows along the clerestorey and aisles on either side below. There are playful touches of flint flushwork on the tower parapet but mainly on the south porch which makes for an enticing entrance.
Within there is a great sense of space, the aisles are of a substantial volume and separated from the nave by rows of slender columns. The overall sense it has to be said is that the Victorian restoration has left its mark in many of the furnishings and the Hardman glass in the east window, but there are several older features that are really enjoyable here. The chancel has some interesting memorials and the font at the opposite end is a handsome example of the typical local design of the 15th century , but pride of place here goes to the late medieval woodwork separating chancel and nave: only the lowest part of the former rood screen survives but it the four decorative rosette panels that comprise its two flanks are a riot of delightful (and often humorous) ornamentation with all kinds of figures, faces and animals, sensitively restored with something like their original colouring. It is a real joy and the greatest treasure of this church.
We found Dickleburgh church open and welcoming on our late morning (pre Covid) visit and thoroughly enjoyed it, though others have not always been so lucky, as Simon's entry on the Norfolk Churches site below reveals!