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St
Margaret, Little Dunham
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The
first time I came to Little Dunham was before I
ever thought of the Norfolk Churches site. It was
back in June 2003, and I was visiting churches in
this area with a group of internet
churchcrawlers. The carload I was with had plenty
of time here, because the rest of the party
missed the concealed drive to the churchyard and
sped on in the direction of Swaffham. My
companions went inside, but I wandered around the
churchyard enjoying the sun on my face, the
smells of early summer, the birdsong and
high-pitched nagging of lambs. I peered through
the hedge, and there they were, staggering and
bullying their mothers a few yards off, oblivious
of me. In the 1980s, Mortlock described the
setting of St Margaret as 'serene', and it
remained so then; it remains so today. Coming back
four years later, there were still lambs, there
was still the smells and the high-pitched
birdsong. I noticed things I had not remembered -
the ancient, cobbled-together porch gates, the
lichenous porch, the greening of the nave floor.
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Like many
village churches in East Anglia, St Margaret is at heart
an Early English building with the elaborations that 14th
and 15th century wealth would bring. This feel of the
13th century continues inside, with elegance and
simplicity rather than dour triumphalism. I liked it a
lot. I liked also the thoroughly rustic atmosphere, the
sense of a touchstone church, the accumulation of the
ages.
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yet the interior is almost entirely a Victorian
creation, from the tiles to the woodwork to the
elegant crucifixion in the east window. Perhaps
that was why I liked it so much, the sense of a
community just out of sight, just beyond the
horizon of the 20th century. But there
are older mysteries. I could not forget from my
last visit the huge, low corbel on the eastern
side of a pillar in the chancel arcade. It is
apparently the head of a bull - or is it a man
with horns? It, or he, is wearing a crown of
leaves - or do they sprout from his head? Perhaps
it is a symbol of St Luke, but if so there should
be wings, and in any case where are the other
three evangelists? Whatever, it looks thoroughly
pagan. I could conjure up that staring eye for
weeks after first seeing it, and can still do so
today.
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Simon Knott, November 2004, updated July
2007
You can also read: With Giants around Swaffham
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