Holy Trinity, West Runton

West Runton on the map is part of the long coastal strip of North Norfolk that runs from Sheringham to Cromer and beyond, about halfway between those two brash, busy towns, but in fact it is probably the most sedate and polite place on this stretch of coast. The towns and villages here are hemmed in against the coast by a surprisingly dramatic stretch of wooded heathland, and West Runton parish can claim the highest point above sea level in the whole of Norfolk, Beacon Hill. It should be added, though, that Norfolk has the lowest highest point of any English county.

As with its neighbours, there is something pleasingly old fashioned about West Runton, as if it might provide illustrations for the Ladybird Book of the Seaside. The church is set back from the low cliffs and beach against the main road, and the view from the south is a little unusual. The aisle has alternating high and low windows, while the windows of the chancel, reaching to the roofline, dwarf everything westward.There is no clerestory, just a blank wall. There is no telling quite how much of this is original, and how much a result of two hefty 19th Century restorations. Certainly, the chancel windows are Victorian, and the aisle has been refaced, but perhaps the aisle windows may relate to altars placed in the aisle when it was built. Another curiosity is the pair of figures carved on the west gable of nave and aisle. They both appear to be mermen.

Just as there is something pleasingly old fashioned about West Runton, the same applies to its church too. You step into a hushed interior, coloured glass in almost every window casting light across the wide nave and aisles. The 14th Century font at the west end is imposing on its colonnade. Turning east it is clear that the parish was, and is, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, but not in the spiky stratospheric style of its better known west London temples but in a more rural, contemplative way that obviously stretches back for a century or more. That century has brought a high quality collection of glass from various workshops, the most memorable of which is probably that of 1959 by Harry Stammers in his familiar Festival of Britain style.

The glass depicts generations of parishioners adoring the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, from medieval knights and ladies at the bottom, up to a 1950s family at the top. The little boy is holding his mum's hand; he has a train set, his big brother a football. Their sister holds dad's hand, and all five look up at the shining chalice and host. The figures look like illustrations out of a 1950s school book, as indeed they should. Oddly, Birkin Haward credited this glass to Hugh Easton, and the mistake was repeated in the revised Buildings of England volume for Norwich and North-East Norfolk. Presumably Haward misidentified Stammers' compass makers mark for Easton's weather vane, but it is clearly not in Easton's style. The earliest of the other glass is by Edward Frampton, and some of the later additions by Powell & Sons I think. There is some very good Arts and Crafts-style glass of 1909 depicting St Francis, and it would be interesting to know who the artist was.

Both aisles end with quietly devotional chapels at their east ends, and this was one of the few churches I visited during Lent 2022 where the images were cloaked in purple, a tradition that many Anglican churches seem to have lost but which is clearly still a living one here. And this seems a busy place, at one with its parish. As often in this part of Norfolk, churches of fairly populous parishes have few monuments, for of course until the 19th Century these were quietly lonely fishing villages rather than holiday resorts. At the time of the 1851 census there were just 485 people living in the parish. But memories of the past live on here. Above the choir stalls in the chancel is a brass plaque remembering Lieutenant-Colonel H R Stopford, (sometime a member of this choir) killed in action at Modder River South Africa November 28th 1899 while commanding the 2nd battalion Coldstream Guards.

Simon Knott, April 2022

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