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The Norfolk Churches Site: an occasional sideways glance at the churches of Norfolk

St Remigius, Testerton

Testerton: adrift in the barley fields

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disguised as a tree one of the area's many ruins

    St Remigius, Testerton
inside of the tower window arch   In the area to the south of Fakenham, there seems to be as many ruined churches as there are working ones. Here we are in a field on the Ryburgh road, and the ruin of Pudding Norton is visible across the hedgerows. Not far off is Little Ryburgh; Oxwick and Pattesley are to the west, and Godwick not far beyond them. If you like ruined churches, it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you don't know where to look, St Remigius disguises itself rather effectively as a large tree, and it is only when you are immediately to the west of it that you can see the tower window, and look straight through it.

Pevsner suggests that the shape of this window is a clue to a fairly late building, probably 15th century. That was difficult to argue with on this day in high summer, when the elder was boiling all over the ruin and the whole piece was adrift in a sea of barley, but you can approach the ruin, and, looking up, see the inside of the red brick tower window arch plainly. If Pevsner is right, of course, the church wasn't in use for very long before the Reformation, land enclosures and depopulation overtook it.

At some point, probably in the 18th century, the ruined tower has been surrounded by an iron fence, and forgotten. This isn't one of Norfolk's most dramatic ruins, but it was the beating heart of a parish during its brief lifetime, and is still a touchstone to its lost community. And, if you are shooting fish in a barrel, they all count.

   

Simon Knott, August 2006

through the west window fence and masonry


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The Norfolk Churches Site: an occasional sideways glance at the churches of Norfolk