We are within the orbit of outer Norwich, the airport nearby and the busy Cromer road not far off. But All Saints' churchyard is an oasis of calm, birdsong the only accompaniment to the day. When I first came here about fifteen years ago the air was filled regularly with the sound of jets taking off and landing, but since the pandemic, traffic from Norwich Airport appears to have diminished. Long may it continue. Sam Mortlock recalled that the Horsford estate remained in the hands of the same family from the Norman Conquest until 1973, when it was sold for the extension to the airport. We will meet that family, the Barrett-Lennards, inside.

This is not a large church, but the tower is impressive. There were bequests to it over the course of the second half of the 15th Century. It seems not much of the rest of the structure was rebuilt at that time, and there was a vigorous restoration in the late 1860s which brought the north aisle and the porch. Pevsner thought the remainder of the church so restored it looks Victorian, which I think is harsh and even untrue. The charming 13th Century chancel is thatched, with the date 1703 picked out a bit clumsily in red tiles in the flint of the gable. 1703 was the year of one of the two great storms of that century. It destroyed much of the fishing fleet along the Norfolk coast, and it seems likely that it created the need for repairs here.

You step into a small, trim interior, with neat brick floors and the furnishings from the 19th Century restoration facing towards a small chancel arch and screen. The square early 13th Century font is probably contemporary with the chancel, and indeed with the nave before its 1860s makeover. On the south side of the nave is a striking, even remarkable window by the grandly named Royal Bavarian Institute for Stained Glass, made by the Zettler workshop of Munich. It remembers three sisters, Edith, Dorothea and Nona Day, who died of consumption in 1891, 1892 and 1893 in Davos and Cairo. One sister stands on the far shore of the Jordan, welcoming her sisters across to a curiously Bavarian paradise, their halos looking like nothing so much as jaunty hats.

There is a collection of late medieval glass in the north aisle reset in the east window. This includes roundels with SJ, IHS and AMR monograms, and collected fragments that include part of an inscription, the word Thomae and the barleycorns trademark of the Norwich school of stained glass. The screen would have been roughly contemporary with the glass, and Pevsner points out that a 1503 bequest survives to its painting. Nothing remains of this today though. You step through it into the most atmospheric part of the church is the chancel, a small, intimate space. The sanctuary feels as if it has been shoehorned in, and it is easy for the imagination to roll the centuries away. And then, turning back west, the lovely little gallery was installed as recently as the late 20th Century provides a thread of continuity.

At the time of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship the population of the parish was a little under 700, and William Athill, the incumbent, claimed the average attendance for morning worship was a hundred, and an impressive two hundred and seventy five for the afternoon sermon, high figures for this strongly non-conformist part of Norfolk and a great contrast with neighbouring Horsham St Faith where the locals appear to have preferred the Methodist chapel on a Sunday. Atthill had only just been installed as vicar here and perpetual curate at Horsham St Faith, and he remarked on the return for Horsford that at present the church is too small for the congregation. This situation would shortly be addressed by the addition of the aisle and the general restoration. Athill would hopefully be pleased by how well-kept and obviously loved the church still is today, and even more than this that it is always open every day.

Simon Knott, March 2023

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