For a city with such a remarkably interesting centre, the suburbs of Norwich are surprisingly dull. As Pevsner observed, there is a paucity of worthwhile buildings except in a few places. Go a bit further out however, and those skeins which float free have at their hearts what were once villages, and although the centre of Drayton can be a traffic nightmare the former village is discernible, and at its centre is this church. It is not a large building, set close above a short lane that runs beside the former village green, now a children's play area. The churchyard opens out towards the west. The exterior of the church is so crisp and neat that you won't be surprised to learn that the church was rebuilt on its original plan in the mid-19th Century, with the addition of a wide north aisle. The tower came first after collapsing in 1850, and then the nave and aisle. The chancel was rebuilt last of all in 1866, by which time there was more of an interest in preserving the past, as we will see inside. The 15th Century south porch was retained, and externally at least it is the only old thing here, although it is pleasing that the nave roof is still thatched.

You step through it into a nave which unsurprisingly has the character of the mid-19th Century, with polished wood and vivid stained glass in the aisle beyond. It is a warm and well-kept interior, and there are survivals of the earlier church, each curious in its way. The font is a plain octagonal bowl which might be any age I suppose, but it doesn't quite go with the Norman colonnade on which it stands. Was it formerly a square 12th Century font cut into an octagonal shape in the new fashion of the 14th Century? And then there is surprise of a great chunk of stonework that sits beside the chancel arch. It was the lower part of the original rood loft stairs, and now stands somewhat forlornly looking like nothing so much as a sentry box. It seems a curious thing to have done.

The window on the south side of the nave on the other side of the chancel arch contains a delight, two panels of 16th Century German glass. One depicts the aged Anna leaning on her stick at the Presentation in the Temple, while the other is a tender Visitation scene, Mary meeting her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country when they are both pregnant for the first time. Birkin Haward notes that they were installed here in the 1960s by King & Son of Norwich.

Interestingly, the window sill beneath this window has a piscina drain set into it, showing that there was once an altar here. The east end of the north aisle forms a little chapel, and the glass in the north corner is etched with a tall depiction of the Blessed Virgin and Christ child. The other glass in this aisle is from the 1880s, and which at first sight appears to all be by Clayton & Bell, although Birkin Haward points out that the glass depicting the Crucifixion and Resurrection was by J&J King of Norwich. From a few decades later comes a brass which notes, unusually, that the person remembered by it died from effects of poison gas.

Up in the chancel, the 14th Century piscina was reset from the old church, a mark of how antiquarianism had taken a hold by 1866. The east window contains inoffensive early glass of the Ascension by Ward & Hughes before Thomas Curtis carried the company on a descent into mawkishness. The old chancel was still in situ when Thomas Blofeld, rector of Drayton, filled in the return for the 1851 Census of Religious Worship. One hundred and seventeen of Drayton's four hundred and seventy two parishioners attended the afternoon sermon that day, a high proportion for this part of Norfolk, although thirty nine of these were Sunday scholars who had no choice but to be there. The church had seating for one hundred and forty people, only eighty of which sittings were free. It must have been a tight fit, and Blofeld's energy and enthusiasm would see the church rebuilt soon after.

Simon Knott, March 2023

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