St Saviour, Surlingham

The village of Surlingham sits pleasantly in a bend of the River Yare to the south-east of Norwich, and its round-towered church of St Mary is memorably attractive. Three hundred yards to the east of St Mary, and seeming more remote than this, sits the ruin of St Saviour above the river. It's an interesting ruin because it has been cleared enough to make a good reading of it possible, and it is obvious that it had that unusual thing in East Anglia, a central or axial tower. This is particularly interesting because, as Neil Batcock in his The Ruined and Deserted Churches of Norfolk points out, enough evidence survives to show that the axial-towered St Saviour and the round-towered St Mary were built more or less at the same time, in the 12th Century.

Much has happened at both churches since of course, and at some point, probably in the 14th Century, the central tower of St Saviour collapsed. When it was repaired it seems that the tower was done away with, and the western tower arch became a new chancel arch, rebuilt in late medieval red brick. The original chancel may well have had an apse, but it was rebuilt square, the outline of the east window surviving, and taking over the space previously occupied by the tower, meaning that by the end of the medieval period the church had a chancel which was as long as its nave.

A curacy was still presented here into the start of the 18th Century, but soon afterwards the two Surlingham parishes appear to have been consolidated, and all activity moved to the other church up in the village. Unsurprisingly the old church was mined for its freestone, but otherwise pretty much abandoned. The antiquarian Francis Blomefield visited the church in 1727, writing that I cros'd Surlingham ferry and saw there the ruins of the old parochiall chapell of St Saviour standing all alone on ye side of a hill. This church seems not to have been disused for many years. The stepps on which the font stood are left and severall stones in the church overgrown with bushes, briars etc.

Ladbrooke's sketch of the early 19th Century shows a large west window which probably dated from the time of the rebuilding, and Neil Batcock pointed to a slight buttressing of flint near an opening towards the west end of the south wall that suggests there was a south porch here, again likely contemporary with the rebuilding. The ruin feels more remote than it is, and would probably be better known if there were signs from the village. There are a few recent interments of ashes in the churchyard, and the naturalist Ted Ellis, familiar to anyone who grew up in the Anglia TV area in the 1960s and 1970s, is buried with his wife in the north-west corner.

Simon Knott, March 2022

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