St Andrew, Letheringsett

Letheringsett sits on the outskirts of the busy little town of Holt, the road winding down to the River Glaven and its watermill, and then just beyond jinking around the churchyard where St Andrew sits. A handsome round-towered church, yew-surrounded, with a narrow clerestory peeking just above the little aisles. The lower part of the tower appears to be essentially 11th Century. As so often, a bell stage was added in the 14th Century, but here it is also round rather than the more familiar octagon. The tower dominates the view as you approach, giving the church an ancient manner, but beyond everything is crisp from the major restoration of William Butterfield in the 1870s.

The porch is Butterfield's, jutting rather crudely into the otherwise restrained south aisle, and you step into an interior which is pretty much entirely the result of his work. Despite the aisles, the church has a narrow feel, the nave and chancel running continuously without interruption, the High Victorian furnishings reaching towards the low arcades. Almost all the windows have coloured glass, and the view to the east is of a remarkably grand alabaster reredos of 1899 which is built up into and around the east window. It was the gift of Sir Alfred Jodrell in memory of his mother. Curiously, both Birkin Haward and consequently Pevsner's revising editor Bill Wilson credit much of the early 20th Century glass here to Kempe & Co, but in fact it is by Herbert Bryans, and is signed with his familiar running dog motif. Bryans had worked for Kempe & Co in the previous century, contributing to the development of their familiar house style, and so perhaps it is not surprising that his later work is sometimes misattributed. The east window is by Frederick Preedy, and came as part of Butterfield's restoration. To the south of it there is a curious window of 1958 which appears to depict the artist Lawrence Gale Linnell present at the Transfiguration. It is by Christopher Webb, and it must be said that it is hardly his best work.

A plaque beneath the Christopher Webb glass remembers various members of the Linnell family, including the church historian and antiquarian Charles Linnell, who was rector here in the 1950s and had this glass installed. Linnell is best known today for the books and guides that he wrote for and about Norfolk churches. Their somewhat dry style is not perhaps to the modern taste, but he was also responsible for speaking out for the past in an age when it was becoming fashionable to forget it. He was co-author of the Shell Guide to Norfolk with his friend Lady Harrod, founder of the Norfolk Churches Trust, which remains a guiding light in the county. In 1959 he removed the fragments of 15th Century glass which had been set in the rectory summerhouse the previous century and returned them to the church, where they sit in panels on the south side of the chancel to the west of the Linnell memorial window.

The royal arms are to Elizabeth II, one of several such sets in Norfolk. They are signed by Charles Linnell as rector of the time. Memorials remember families associated with Letheringsett in recent centuries, among them the Cozens-Hardy family and the Jodrells. The 1888 memorial to Lady Lucinda Emma Maria Jodrell, who departed this life at Cannes, recalls that this church was re-roofed and porch re-built at her expense. A ledgerstone in the north aisle remembers Nathaniel Burrel, who in 1742 was buried here at the feet of his father. Burrel was rector of Letheringsett, and his inscription tells us that he was a true son of the Church of England, in principles orthodox, in manners courteous, in temper friendly, and in all his dealings punctually just. A curiosity is the handlettered copy of the headstone inscription to Johnson Jex, the 18th Century village blacksmith who became renowned as an inventor and maker of clocks. His serene death mask sits on a shelf above the 13th Century Purbeck marble font, keeping a watch on all who enter.

Simon Knott, May 2022

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