All Saints, Bodham

Bodham is a scattered parish up on the high ridge to the south of Sheringham, and its church sits almost alone in its neatly clipped churchyard along a narrow lane that will eventually take you all the way to Holt. A small church, the style appears that of the 14th Century, but in fact it has been almost entirely rebuilt in the years since, particularly in the 1850s, when all the window tracery was replaced, and in 1893 when the east end of the chancel was rebuilt. The tower as it looks now is the work of the 1920s.

One of the delights of this part of Norfolk is that hundreds of its churches are open and welcoming, but a few aren't, and this is one of those few. I've visited a number of times in the last twenty years, and I have always found it locked. There's no keyholder information, although when I visited on a weekday in April 2022 there was a notice saying that the church is now open at weekends. John Salmon kindly took the photographs below. The stalls and the pulpit came from Beckham workhouse, there is a plain font, a royal arms for Queen Anne, and the seemly sanctuary has glass by J & J King.

Simon Knott, May 2022

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