St Clement, Burnham Overy

The Burnham parishes huddle against the coast, and the church of each one has its own character. None more so perhaps than the church of Burnham Overy, sitting by the road from Burnham Market to Wells, just before you get a sight of the sea. The parish has two settlements, Burnham Overy Town up on the ridge and Burnham Overy Staithe down by the marshes, and the church is in the first of these. The Normans built it as a cruciform church with a central tower. However, by about 1200 the transepts were demolished and the tower shortened, all four archways blocked to create a bizarre narrow passage between nave and chancel. Aisles came to both sides of the nave and the south side of the chancel, but the first and last of these have also since been demolished, leaving the arcading in the new walls.

You enter a building with a lovely atmosphere, a simple country church at ease with itself. There is no coloured glass, allowing old wood and stone to speak for themselves. As you'd expect, the passageway creates two separate spaces, two churches really, the nave still late Norman in character with its capitals on the arcade, the chancel Early English, with three memorable lancets in the east wall. Effectively there is no way of sitting in the nave and seeing what is going on in the chancel. It is a quirky delight. A nave altar sits beside the doorway at the nave end of the passage, and the chancel is also fitted out for liturgical use.

The decalogue board with the Ten Commandments, Creed and Lord's Prayer sits imposingly above the passage at the east end of the nave, signed by the churchwardens of 1747 and 1748. The royal arms is now reset above the south doorway. It is a Stuart set with England and France impaled in the first and fourth quarters, but it has been relettered for George III. Most likely it was altered for the Hanover succession when the decalogue board was erected. The late medieval period does not impinge much here, but a 15th Century St Christopher wall painting is set in the filled-in arcade on the north side of the nave, making it clear that the demolition of that aisle was an early one.

The rambling churchyard is a pleasant place to wander. You can feel the breeze from the sea even if you can't see it, and as if to remind you of its presence there are a number of headstones with inscriptions telling of shipwrecks and drownings. In the extension burial ground beyond you'll find the last resting place of the children's author Joan G Robinson, several of whose books, including When Marnie Was There are set in a thinly disguised Burnham Overy, and evoke its atmosphere beautifully.

Simon Knott, March 2022

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

Burnham Deepdale - Burnham Norton - Burnham Overy - Burnham Sutton - Burnham Thorpe - Burnham Ulph - Burnham Westgate