St Peter, Bittering

There are a fair number of East Anglian parish churches that you can describe as being off the beaten track or lost in the fields. Bittering church is only about a hundred metres from the nearest road, but this is a remote country lane, and Bittering itself is such an empty parish with no village to speak of, that St Peter really feels as if it could be one of the more remote churches in Norfolk. At one time a moated Elizabethan manor house stood directly to the north, and the church would have formed a group with it, but it was demolished in the 19th Century and only part of the overgrown moat remains.

Bittering church was declared redundant in the 1970s, not unreasonably perhaps given that hardly anyone lived in the parish. Until this time, 19th Century Bittering Hall stood just to the south of the church, but the Hall was demolished in the early 1980s, The Hall Park beyond has been almost completely dug up for sand and gravel extraction, and across the open fields around the little churchyard comes the sound of machinery and the fall and clatter of earth and stone. But the church should not really have survived at all, of course, for it is in a part of Norfolk with plenty of churches. But this one has a character all of its own, a happy amalgamation of Early English work and a 17th Century restoration, presumably for the Manor House. The nave and chancel are all under one continuous roof.

Although no longer a part of the Diocese of Norwich's parish network it remains in use as a church, still hosting two or three services a year, a a testament to the energy and commitment of a handful of local enthusiasts, as well as the Norfolk Churches Trust. It is, I'm afraid, kept locked, when churches like this really shouldn't be, and it relies on the keyholders being in and available to open up for visitors. Pevsner says that it has an east window by Lydall Armitage in the 1920s, which I hope to see one day.

Simon Knott, February 2022

Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.