Westfield is a small village just to the south of Dereham, still protected from the onslaught of its voracious neighbour by the rolling barley fields, and the parish church sits out in those fields a short way to the east of the village. It is a splendid sight with its rabbit-eared tower rising above the trees, and it is only when you get closer that you can see that the church has no chancel. This was demolished in the late 17th Century, and the chancel arch was filled in, the original east window tracery apparently reused. This gives the building a pleasing boxy shape which is enhanced by the tight churchyard. The church appears to have been pretty much entirely of the early 14th Century, as at neighbouring Whinburgh, and then in the following century the trim little south porch was added with its chequerboard flintwork. It is all most attractive.

And so is the interior you step into, an intimate, elegant space of white walls and brick floors, the bricks arranged in a herringbone fashion as at Whinburgh, with no coloured glass to spoil the effect. The 14th Century octagonal font is also the same as that at Whinburgh, but there the comparison ends because this interior is one of light and simplicity rather than of shadow and mystery. As at other Norfolk churches which have lost their chancels, for example Great Walsingham and Runhall, the sanctuary is reset at the east end of the nave, the 17th Century communion rails reused. Pevsner thought they had originally been a three-sided set, although it isn't clear if the alteration was made when the chancel was demolished or at the 19th Century restoration. The commandment boards stand either side of the east window, the saltire flag of St Andrew hanging above. There is just one memorial, more imposing than it would be in a larger church. It remembers Thomas Waller, who died in 1770. O Harmless Death, his inscription reads, whom still the valiant brave, the wise expect, the sorrowful invite, and all the good embrace, who know the grave a short dark passage to eternal light.

Simon Knott, July 2023

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