All Saints, Warham

Warham is by no means a large village, but by an accident of history it ended up with two substantial medieval churches. After the Reformation the parishes were united, and in 1960 the Diocese decided it had no further use for the other one, St Mary Magdalen. Here at All Saints, nearer the middle of the village, was the church which would alone hold services. The battle for the life and return to use of St Mary Magdalen is detailed on the page for that church, but nothing should take the shine off of All Saints, for it is a lovely country church in a fine setting. Today it appears quite a small church, hugging its pleasant churchyard, but what you see today are the remains of a larger building for there was once a tower at the west end, of which lumps remain. Moreover, the church had aisles to north and south which have now gone, apart from the most westerly bays which were retained as transepts, creating a cruciform church. The transepts reach up to the height of the base of the nave's easterly gable, so there probably never was a clerestory.

Unsurprisingly, the church you enter feels somewhat long and narrow, and intimate under its low roof. You can see the outlines of the former arcades, now filled in, on both sides. The overwhelming impression is perhaps of the devotional early 20th Century, but there is one much older survival at the west end, the 12th Century font with foliage patterns. Intriguingly, there is a second Norman font lying on the floor in the north transept. It has been recut into an octagonal shape in the fashion of the later medieval period, but it was clearly once square in shape, and had panels depicting the Labours of the Months as at nearby Burnham Deepdale. Was it possibly removed from Wareham's other church when it was restored in 1801, and replaced with the Georgian birdbath font there now?

A brass of 1474 to William Rokewood survives by the south door, and a bequest by him was made to the reparation of the north chapel, which would have been at the east end of the north aisle and perhaps suggests a date for its completion. A defaced effigy is barely discernible as such, and in general there is not much of a sense of the long past. But as you'd expect in this part of Norfolk, there is plenty of evidence of a later High Church enthusiasm here, for example the grand marble reredos of 1897 which spreads right across the sanctuary, seeming more imposing than it actually is. The glass above it is of the same date, Christ offering crowns to child martyrs while saints look on. Birkin Haward thought it was by Heaton, Butler & Bayne. Other glass in the church includes a window by Powell & Sons depicting St George flanked by Joshua and Gideon, which I think must date from about 1920, and a curiously unsatisfying window of the Good Shepherd flanked by the shields of the Archdiocese of Canterbury and the Diocese of Norwich, and dated 1924. Could it be by William Morris of Westminster?

The lavish refurbishment of the chancel happened during the incumbency here of Charles Tilton Digby. He was parish priest from 1874 to 1923, almost half a century. What changes he must have seen in the parish! A lovely memorial to him in the long chancel tells us that he found joy and happiness in the care of his people, the birds and flowers of his garden and in the beauty of this house of God. Another plaque remembers one of his successors, Richard Cattell, and tells us that he was Captain of the English Rugby Football Team 1900 and also Chaplain to the Forces at Gallipoli 1915. Perhaps even more interestingly, Cattell acted as the stand-in priest at Stiffkey and Morston during the early 1930s when that benefice's notorious incumbent, Harold Davidson, was suspended by the Diocese before eventually being defrocked. Davidson was not best pleased by this, and on one occasion stormed into Morston church while Cattell was taking the morning service. An argument broke out which resulted in the two clerics throwing punches and fighting over the church's large bible before the eyes of an aghast congregation. Hard to imagine now.

Simon Knott, May 2022

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