Here we are on the infant river Bure which separates Saxthorpe from its larger non-identical twin village of Corpusty. Corpusty's church has been redundant for many a long year now, and Saxthorpe church serves the joint parish. This is a surprisingly hilly part of Norfolk ,and the two churches face each other across a gentle valley. St Andrew is a large, stately building in a pleasing churchyard on the edge of the village. All manner of 18th and 19th Century headstones are scattered across the conservation area to the north of the church. The south side is neater, a green velvet cushion for the clean-cut aisles with their many late Perpendicular windows, so clearly there was money here towards the end of the medieval period. The chancel is earlier, simpler, its Decorated windows seeming more aloof. The tower is likely contemporary with the chancel, the nave rebuilt later in the 1480s.

There was a major restoration in 1892 and you step inside to the familiarity of a well-furnished and well-kept interior typical of the date. As often with such a late restoration, the medieval survivals are curated well and integrated into the renewed whole. The best of these is probably the 15th Century screen, with stencilling on the dado, a painted rail and delicious details in the spandrels including lions and cherubs. There are several squint holes bored in the dado, at least one of which appears to be a pushed-out knot.

The Norwich workshop of J&J King produced some quality work locally towards the end of the 19th Century, and theirs is the charming and understated Works of Mercy window. A curiosity is an Agnus Dei carved into the south end of a bench with an open back at the front of the south aisle. Mortlock records that this was the symbol of the locally important Page family, one of whom, Peter Page, was parish priest here from the time of the late 15th Century rebuilding of the nave until the 1530s Reformation began.

At the time of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship the two churches of Saxthorpe and Corpusty shared a minister, Samuel Ashby, who took the morning service at Saxthorpe and the afternoon service at Corpusty. We may assume that some people attended both, but the total attendance for the two services, excluding the scholars who had to be there, was fewer than sixty, at a time when the combined population of the two parishes was almost eight hundred. Even for this part of East Anglia this was a low attendance percentage. Several hundred attended Corpusty's two Methodist chapels, but even so it seems that these parishioners of the upper Bure Valley were not enthusiastic churchgoers.

Simon Knott, June 2021

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