There are few more impressive sights in Norfolk than that of the splendid church of St Mary sitting on its hill above the large village of Snettisham. Approached from the south-west, it is jaw-droppingly impressive, the great west window with its fluid tracery with the mighty spire above framed by the dynamic buttressing of the aisles against a background of trees and fields. It might even have you reaching for your road atlas in confusion, because surely such a mighty, bespired Decorated church like this should be on the other side of the Wash in Lincolnshire? Perhaps you took the wrong turning at the Hardwick interchange? But no, this is Norfolk. And yet all is not perfect, for the long chancel, fully forty feet long, was demolished in the 17th Century, and the spire was rebuilt in the later part of the 19th Century. Can a Victorian earnestness be detected about it? And the north transept has been lost, leaving the spire at the junction in an L-shape rather than at a crossing.

Pevsner describes St Mary as the most exciting c14 Dec parish church in Norfolk, which is of course slightly faint praise, given the scarcity of this period in the county, and fans of Cley-next-the-Sea may disagree. But what is delightful about this church for me is that, despite its epic scale, it retains a human touch, and perhaps this is an achievement of this artistic period, before the Black Death made us all serious and the Perpendicular style celebrated glory and power rather than beauty and mystery. You enter through the great west front, and step into an engaging 19th Century space, thanks to the thoughtful restoration by Frederick Preedy in the 1870s, an architect who found plenty to do in west Norfok and neighbouring east Cambridgeshire. He restored the crossing area as a sanctuary, the tower arch becoming the chancel arch. This new chancel space appears intimate despite the open spaces on each side. The south transept is now the vestry, and although the north transept has gone the part of the aisle to the north of the crossing remains, and is now reinvented as a quiet chapel, withi it, Sir Wymond Carye lies at rest, perhaps not entirely at peace given that it was by the command of the Carye family that the chancel was destroyed. There are more Carye memorials on the wall opposite.

The glass in the west window is surprisingly early, by William Warrington in 1846. It depicts Old Testament scenes against a striking blue background, and the following decades would bring Snettisham no glass better than this. Most of it came in the early 20th Century. The east window is bog standard stuff by Percy Bacon, and oh how that intimate space beneath the tower cries out for something more numinous! It is a 1920s replacement for glass destroyed by bombs dropped from a Zeppelin airship in 1915. The latest glass here is from 1970 by Paul Jefferies for King & Son of Norwich, depicting the Blessed Virgin and Child surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists.

Snettisham has one of the 15th Century latten pulpits you come across is East Anglia, and beside it is a painted pulpit with panels depicting King Solomon, St John the Baptist and St Peter. Beyond, a door leads through into the south transept which must be the most commodious vestry of any Norfolk church. Two huge and near-identical early 19th Century memorials to Henry Styleman and his wife would be completely out of scale in a smaller church. Also in the transept is a memorial to Thomas Daniell, who died in 1806. He is remembered as Attorney-General of the island of Dominica. Daniell was a slave owner. In his will he left possession of 100 negroes to his wife, and she and their son Edward would claim the compensation when slavery in British dominions came to an end in 1835.

Simon Knott, April 2023

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