All Saints, Stanford

All Saints is one of the four churches of the Norfolk Battle Training Area and is not generally accessible by the public. Indeed Stanford's former parish church is at the very heart of the training area, the live firing zone, and it is so far from civilisation that the silence in the air is remarkable. I recall the first time I ever came here about twenty years ago. I had not heard such a silence in England before. The sheep were fearless, inquisitive as we let ourselves into the churchyard, but their lambs hid behind them, chins tilted upwards as they watched. As I wandered about the churchyard, tiny spring rabbits bolted from beneath my feet. At first this was startling, and then comical, for they had never seen a human before, and they waited until I was right on top of them before running for the scrub. I became wary lest I step on one, but I don't think they were ever in any real danger.

This is one of East Anglia's round towered churches, the only one in the Battle Training Area. The tower is 12th Century, apart from the octagonal bell stage which was added in the 15th Century, probably soon after 1473, when John Skyner gave 20s to the reparation of the bells. This was roughly a thousand pounds in today's money. The bell windows alternate with blank windows which are actually flint flushwork, a nice trick. Simon Cotton tells me that in 1401 Boniface IX granted an indulgence for penitents who gave alms to Stanford church. This suggests that there was building work happening here at the time which needed paying for, and it is perhaps a good date for when the late medieval church began to be erected, culminating in the 1470s with the tower belfry. However, in its turn the church was almost entirely rebuilt in the early 1850s by Frederick Sutton, son of the wealthy local landowner Richard Sutton and the brother of Augustus, the rector of neighbouring West Tofts, who instigated an even more major rebuilding there, at the hands of the architect Augustus Welby Pugin. The south aisle had been demolished in the 1770s, and the north aisle and chancel were in ruins, so all the window tracery dates from Sutton's restoration, although some of it may have been reused. There is no clerestory and this is not a large church, despite first appearances.

You step into a wide, almost square space, beyond which the chancel seems almost an afterthought. Since my previous visit, the east end of the nave has been filled with scaffolding, apparently to support the chancel arch and roof. The small octagonal font tucked in the south-west corner could be any age, but is probably late 14th Century I expect. Sutton's restoration brought the chancel murals, the raised steps, the great rood, and even the painted glass in the north aisle window, which Pevsner thought worthy of mention, but which is mostly now lost. There is more of Sutton's work at Brant Broughton in Lincolnshire, the main family seat, including much glass made by him and his brother Augustus. The arcades rest on elegant, fluted columns, and something very odd has happened at the east end of the south aisle, where a former archway appears to have been truncated by the eastern wall. Did it lead into a former south transept? Or was it begun and never finished? Curious.

As with the church at Tottington, the roof tiles are stored inside here, but the benches are gone, the bells have gone. And yet the ghosts of the past remain. This feels as if it must have been a warm and welcoming building, busy in the years of its restoration, and still a touchstone for generations. Outside, they lie. Quantrills and Clarks, Rudds and Gathercoles. A weathered Gathercole memorial is profoundly evangelical: Weep not for us our children dear, because we die and leave you here. But look to Christ the crucified, that you may feel his blood applied. Another for a Quantrill wife hopes that God shall wipe away all the tears from their eyes. All about, the silence continues.

Simon Knott, December 2023

Follow these journeys as they happen on X/twitter.

a general introduction to the churches of the Norfolk battle training area

a visit to the Battle Training Area churches in 2023