case photos on Flickr

Scottow is a village on the busy Norwich to Cromer road, but its church is far off, and there is no straight line between the two. All Saints sits in a pleasing old estate village of largely 19th century housing, shoehorned into the edge of the former RAF Coltishall airbase. To get from the village to the church, you need to go around the perimeter. A farm track heads off into woods, and then you are on the estate, with its gorgeous old hall, its stable block surmounted by a clock turret, and cottages scattered about farm spaces. The church is tightly hemmed in by its graveyard, and difficult to photograph, for this is a big church.

The great two-storey 15th century porch is slapped hard on to the nave, a green man looking down from the vaulting. The south aisle stretches eastwards from it, a rood stair turret showing that the screen stretched right across the church. Inside, there is no chancel arch, just an arch-braced rood beam and a clerestory that runs to within one bay of the length of the church. This is a late rebuilding, right on the eve of the Reformation, more of the effect of a vast long hall than the usual two-cell forms of the big Norfolk churches.

The interior is full of character, and yet curiously gloomy given how large the windows are and how they are full of clear glass. But some if this might be put down to the overwhelmingly 17th century nature of the internal furnishings, from the delightful dolphins twisting on the font cover to quite the most baroque organ case. In fact, it would not surprise me to discover that it is not an organ case at all, but wall panelling from another building brought here and bolted on. As you look around you can't escape the impression that that much of the Jacobean character of the church might have been installed later than that period by a collector. Coming here on a sunny Saturday afternoon in late June 2019 I was surprised to discover the church full of incense, the sunlight shining through it from the south windows.

There are no less than ten hatchments lining the walls high above the east end, frowning down on all the dark woodwork. There are medieval survivals, part of a St Christopher still bestrides the north arcade, the fish circling the Saints feet rather glumly, and no wonder, for a sea monster is gobbling them up on the right hand side. A post-reformation 'goodly text' can be seen further west along the same wall. In the south aisle there is a chalice brass, for a Priest during this church's Catholic days. And, most precious of all, a perfect medieval altar mensa preserved in a case in the chancel as a memorial.

CofE ministers get uppity, and sometimes with good cause, when their churches are treated as museums. But, in addition to their everyday uses, that is exactly what most of them are. Scottow is more museum-like than most, but I tend to think of all churches as folk museums, giving us a touchstone back down the generations. Scottow does that too, but it is rather more than that, for it is a building of interesting artefacts, of curiosa, a place to look and touch, and to feel the presence of the past resonating.

One final curiosity. The church has two sets of royal arms. This is not in itself that unusual, but they are both unusual forms. One, in the south aisle, is a vast set for William and Mary. The other, above the south doorway is to Elizabeth II, date 1953, and looking remarkably old, considering that the good lady was still on the throne.

Case p. documento de crânio... by ::: Madah! bolsas e acessórios :::