Environmental setting:

Foulden lies in the far west of the Norwich Diocese between the Breckland and the fens and within easy reach of Thetford Forest. Its 300 acre Common to the north is a SSSI with unusual flora that reflect the conjunction of wetland and chalk and where there are numerous pingos.

 

The Grade 1 listed church of All Saints is situated on the southern edge of the village, close to a public highway but far from thoroughfares.  The east wall of the Chancel is visible from the road, but its patched rendering (unlike the fine flint work of other local churches), gives no indication of the particular qualities, internal and external, of this church.  Visitors therefore tend to be mostly those with family connections, but entries in the visitors’ book show appreciation of “this lovely old church”. 

 

There is an extensive churchyard to the south and west, the graves well attended by parishioners.  The south-eastern part of this is an area of unconsecrated ground (see plan), which, together with the site of the former rectory (built in 1951, now a private dwelling), was given to the church by Lord Amherst in exchange for the parish “flaxlands” (historically where hemp was grown for the bell ropes).  

 

Boundaries:

The eastern boundary of the churchyard is a flint wall adjacent to a public road, with the entrance to the churchyard at the northern end where there is a wide iron gate and a kissing gate. 

 

The deteriorating flint wall on the north side of the unconsecrated ground constitutes the remainder of the original south boundary of the churchyard prior to the extension when the western half of this original boundary was levelled. From the Church, a pathway led to the kissing gate, known as the Hempland Gate,  in the west churchyard boundary and thence onto a public footpath, now closed. Part of the iron kissing gate was stolen, the remainder now abuts the neighbour’s paddock.

 

South of this the boundary is hedging, and to the north it is modern block walling. The north boundary of the churchyard consists of a very dilapidated flint wall with some modern block walling at the east end.

 

Views:

The only extended view from the churchyard is to the west across open farmland. A row of 19th century cottages can be seen to the northwest, and the PCC was instrumental in planning permission being turned down for a three-storey house adjacent to the north boundary.  Across the public road to the east are attractive cottages of an earlier date, one of which had been an ale house.

 

The 20th century former rectory to the south is well screened behind hedging and little can be seen of the modern bungalow to the north-east once one has entered the churchyard.

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Churchyard Monuments:

The 14th century cusped tomb recess in the exterior wall of the south aisle – see below.

 

Foulden’s grade 2 WW1 memorial stands inside the churchyard, close to the entrance.

It was built by public subscription (in 1920?) and has recently been restored.  The inscription is from Samuel 1, Chapter 25, V15-16, and is a very unusual one: 

“But the men were very good to us and we were not hurt…  They were a wall unto us both by night and day”.  

The memorial bears nine names; one of whom is the Honourable William Amherst Cecil, a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards and heir to the Amherst Barony, killed in September 2014 at the Battle of the Marne.  Much of Foulden was owned by the wealthy Amherst family who had the nearby extensive Didlington Estate and its Hall, famed for its library and Egyptian artefacts (which inspired Howard Carter to take up Egyptian archaeology) until they lost all to a dishonest solicitor, Lord Amherst died, and the family came to live at Foulden Hall. Lady Amherst is buried close to the exterior south wall of the Chancel.

 

There is, as yet, no memorial to the three men from Foulden who died in WWII, although information is provided in the church as to how John Osborn was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.  John was born in a caravan in Foulden to a widely respected gypsy family, who spent much of each year working in Foulden.  His parents were married in All Saints and John attended Foulden School, when possible, and was described by a contemporary as “a nice quiet lad”.  Following service with the Navy in WW1, John emigrated to Canada, where he eventually joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers.  In December 1941 he was an RSM in Hong Kong, leading his men in the fight against the Japanese who surrounded them.  Heavily outnumbered, he threw himself upon a grenade that he was not in time to throw back. A barracks in Hong Kong was named after him.  The village plans to have a simple War Graves Commission type headstone to record John and the other two men who died.

 

There is a large and elaborate early 20th century headstone to the north-west of the church, which commemorates William and Caroline Billman.  Caroline was born into the Lawley family, which church registers show to have been a long established family of agricultural labourers, and she was aunt to the John Lawley, who was born in Foulden in 1859, and who, after his family moved to Bradford, joined the Salvation Army, eventually becoming renowned at home and abroad as ADC to its founder, General William Booth.

 

Visitors researching family history are very appreciative of the memorial inscription survey that resides in the church and describes all extant memorials, interior and exterior.

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Archaeological Remains:

A variety of objects are likely to be buried beneath the collapsed tower, so that any levelling of this area (e.g. to extend community space), would require archaeologists’ supervision.

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The Living Churchyard:

Mature trees provide nesting sites for birds, and also sites for the bat boxes due to be installed this year.  All Saints has several species of bats roosting within and outside the church, but no evidence of a maternity roost; all the bats thought to be male. The species are: Brown Longeared, Common and Soprano Pipistrelles and Natterers.

 

Swift boxes were installed approximately ten years ago and are in use each year.  For some years, a barn owl perched on the Queen post of the south porch, whilst devouring its prey and left pellets beneath.  The churchyard is regularly mown, but the unconsecrated ground provides dense cover, particularly Comfrey, for wildlife, and is currently being improved by the removal of a bonfire site and increased planting of such things as buddleia and teasels.  An important aspect of the objection to a modern house against the northwest boundary was the presence of stone curlews in the locality.

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The Village and its two Churches:

Foulden is referred to in the Domesday Book as “Phuldona, Fulendula or Fulgaduna”, names of old English derivation, meaning “Fowl Dune” or “Bird Hill”. “Fugal” is Anglo Saxon for fowl and reflects numerous wildfowl on the local fens.  The village was at that time situated, along with two fisheries and a mill, on the low ground north of the River Wissey, an area now known as Borough Fen.  

 

The Domesday Book says the Village belonged to William de Warren, Warren being one of the long term Lords of the Manor, the other being Latimer.

 

This early village was served by the Church of St Edmund, situated on the high ground above the river and not far from an Early to Middle Saxon inhumation cemetery with seven burials, including one of a man and his dog. There is other evidence of an Early Saxon settlement in the area, and although little of Late Saxon occupation, the village was well established by 1066.

 

Blomefield describes St. Edmunds as having been, “A chapel situated in a place called Burhall-Field, where the name Chapel Close persists to this day”. But he then goes on to say that, “It was called a chapel improperly by some negligent rector” before describing it as the original parish church of Foulden, said to be the mother church of All Saints and having been a substantial church with, “A tower, or belfry, with 2 bells and 2 altars, beside the principal altar“. Curiously, he says, “There were burials at St. Edmunds, but no baptism”. The names Burhall-Field and Chapel Close are no longer remembered and nothing now remains of the former church. 

 

It is thought that All Saints was founded by Sir John de Creke who had it built all of a piece in the early 14thcentury at his own expense, approximately half a mile to the east of St Edmunds to serve as a daughter church.  There were probably dwellings already in this area, but, following the advent of the Black Death in 1348/9, the bulk of the village gradually moved away from the river and established itself much closer to this later church of All Saints.  The importance of the navigable river for transport would account for some continued habitation by the Wissey right up to the early 20th century.

 

The fact that the two churches coexisted in use for some 200 years (St Edmunds was finally abandoned in 1550), suggests that the population of Foulden was numerically extensive, as well as geographically extended, and perhaps also suggests that its two churches gained something from their proximity to the then very important Christian centres of Thetford and Bury St Edmunds.  The Prioress of a Thetford Nunnery had a manor in Foulden “and a fuld course belonging to it”, according to Blomefield.

 

The Founder:

On the exterior wall of the south aisle is a 14th century cusped tomb recess of freestone with an ogee head and, within the recess, a broken 14th century tomb slab with a raised cross decoration. Blomefield says that “these arched monuments and this immuring of founders, was practiced in ancient days” and that this “seems to have been built about the reign of Edward I (1272 to 1307)”.  Confusingly, a footnote states it to be “in memory of Sir John de Creke, Knt, who lived in Edward III’s time (1327 to 1377) and was probably a benefactor of this pile”.  It is now generally thought that Sir John was the actual founder of All Saints and that this recessed tomb was built in the 14th century, either for a member of his family or as a memorial to Sir John himself, his actual burial site being in the church at Westley, Cambs., with a French inscription. This tomb recess has graffito with the initials E.B. and the date 1594.

 

According to Simon Knott, this tomb recess “is said variously to be that of Roger Weyland or Sir John de Creke”.  White’s Directory of 1855 says it was “inside the church with the mutilated effigy of a man in armour on it”, but this almost certainly refers to some other tomb no longer extant and site unknown (box pews installed against aisle and Chancel walls in 18th century).

 

Rectors:

1265 John de Pikenham

          John de Sheffend

1316 Reginald de Cusancia (Licenced in 1326 to be absent for one year)

1335 William de Monte Acuto or Montague

1344 John Mayduit

1349 Thomas Palmere (the last rector)

 

Blomefield lists the rectors between 1265 and 1349, the earliest of whom pre-date All Saints and must have been rectors of St Edmunds.   The large stone slab in the Chancel floor is a memorial to the last of these Rectors, as Blomefield in 1769 could discern the name of Thomas Palmere, Rector from 1349 to 1362.  It has been suggested that this was “possibly the time of the building of this church”, but there is a very strong tradition that All Saints was built entirely during the time of an Italian Rector, Reginald de Cusancia, between 1316 and 1335 (that is, prior to the advent of the Black Death in 1348/9), and therefore entirely in the Decorated Style of church architecture so characteristic of that era.

 

Reginald de Cusancia has not been associated with any grave site or memorial, and it is likely that he returned to Italy, either of his own volition, or when (as Blomefield describes) parliament gave the livings of “alien monks” to poor English scholars.

 

The Living, the Rectory and the Vicarage:

Prior to the building of All Saints, the Rectors would have been Rectors of St. Edmunds and “in the reign of Edward 1 (1272 to 1307) the Rectory was valued at 32 Marks and the Rector had a Manse and 40 acres of glebe, and the town paid 15d Peter’s Pence”.

 

There is no record or tradition of where this early Rectory might have been situated, either within the vicinity of St. Edmunds or of the original village.

 

However, two of Foulden’s most ancient houses stand opposite each other in Vicarage Road at some distance from All Saints and even further from the church of St. Edmund. The Old Vicarage Farmhouse may be 16thcentury, but the layout of the Old Rectory suggests that this building may have developed from a much earlier hall house on the same site. It is possible, therefore, that this might be the site of the “Manse” which the Rector had in the reign of Edward 1st,  and that the original Rectory was always located within the present village on the site of what is now called The Old Rectory, but on old maps, The Vicarage. 

 

Thomas Palmere had been appointed in 1349 by the Priory of Lewes, but in 1350 or 1354 “Gonvile-Hall or College of Cambridge bought the patronage of All Saints with its glebes and rectorial tithes from the Priory of Lewes. After Thomas’ death in 1362 the Bishop of Norwich appropriated the Rectory of Foulden to the College which then “Presented to the vicarage”. The Vicar was to receive £10 per year (being part of the income from glebes and tithes) and a “Suitable dwelling house”.

 

Gonville and Caius College are the Patrons and Lay Rectors of All Saints to this day

 

Kelly’s Directory of Norfolk 1925 states that, “the registers date from the year 1538 and are in fair preservation”, and it describes the living as, “a discharged Vicarage annexed to the Rectory of Oxburgh”. Bryant says that, “in June1761 the Vicarage was consolidated with the Rectory of Oxburgh”.

 

White’s Directory of 1845 lists no vicar but a curate, and in 1903 Bryant states that, “the Rev. Rupert Turner has been Curate in Charge since 1888 and resides at the Vicarage here”. The site of this vicarage is not made clear. 

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The Church Building in Detail:

All Saints is described in an Architect’s Report of 1976 as “a medium sized unspoiled structure comprising Chancel with lean-to vestry on the north side, clerestoried nave with bell cote on west gable, north and south aisles and north and south porches”.  It refers to the collapsed tower and the “unusual absence of Victorian work” and, it is this, together with “the generally impressive quality of the stonemasonry details” that help to give All Saints its grade 1 listing. White’s Directory of 1855 reported that, “ the tower is an ivy-covered ruin, but the rest of the fabric, after being long in a dilapidated state, has recently been thoroughly repaired”. As this pre-dated the extensive restoration programmes of the Victorian era, All Saints has remained architecturally very much as it was built in the early 14th century. 

The exceptions are the perpendicular windows installed in the Chancel in the 15th century, the Rood Screen Staircase (15th century) which obscured a third of the beautiful east window of the south aisle, and the collapse of the tower. Also, the outer doorway of the south porch looks Early English in style, rather than Decorated. TGR listing describes, “a large south porch with double ogee moulded entrance arch on shafted responds”. It may have been brought from a 13th century church elsewhere, perhaps St. Edmunds when it was abandoned. The east window of the south porch has massive reticulated tracery of the Decorated period.

 

The report describes the Chancel as being “15th century on earlier foundations”, but it is generally considered to be part of the original 14th century building, its early date indicated by the ogee headed piscina and the high-pointed arch of the priest’s door.

 

The Chancel roof is of oak and the TGR Listing describes it as “a late medieval moulded arch-braced roof”.  It is generally thought to be the original roof and certainly predates the 15th century perpendicular windows, as the roof braces can be seen to have been cut away to accommodate them.

 

On the exterior of the east nave gable an inverted V can be seen, and this has been described as the result of weathering where an earlier Chancel roof met the nave; but may simply be “a ledge to prevent rainwater running down into the church and to throw it out instead onto the Chancel roof”.  Above the Chancel arch is a blocked-up window, which was a quatrefoil within a circle, a popular 14th century design.

 

The church is constructed of flint, partly rendered with ashlar, and some brick dressings (TGR Listings).  Roofs are variously slate, pantiles or lead. No description exists of the original nave roof; the present one is plain and may be late 19th century or early 20th century.  It was oak in the 18th century and, like the rest of the church, covered in lead.

 

All round the nave there is an exterior stone string course below the windows, “another indication of work done in the 14th century”. The aisle windows have fine 14th century tracery in two alternating designs. 

 

The Tower:

Blomefield’s reference to the monument to Sarah and Burham Raymond indicates that it was written after 1728 and it describes the tower as being still intact.  

 

At the west end of the nave “is a four-square tower of flint, &c with quoins and embattlements of free-stone, and on them 8 stone pinnacles carved.  In this tower hang 5 small tuneable bells and the treble was the gift of Mr Raymond and has his arms cast on it”. 

 

The greater part of the tower must have fallen during the 18th century, as T.H.Bryant says that “in 1791, the repairs necessary to be done to the church amounted to £80. There were 5 bells never rung, the tower having been fallen down many years. A faculty was granted for the sale of 4 bells weighing about  20 cwt and worth about £56”.

 

T.H. Bryant also says that there were 3 bells in the time of Edward VI (1547-53).  

 

Interior Monuments:

Blomefield describes the large black and white marble moment attached to the northern junction of Chancel arch and nave, which, “the disconsolate Burham had made to his most endearing beloved consort, Sarah”, who died in 1700.  It has a lengthy inscription, to which was added “here also lyeth the body of Burham Raymond, husband to the aforesaid Sarah, who died Dec 30 1728 aged 80 years”.  The monument has the Raymond shield upon it with a cat-a-mountain and skull and crossbones.

 

Burham was the eldest son of Thomas Raymond “the first sole keeper of the Papers of State and Councel at Whitehall to King Charles II”, and was clearly both wealthy and generous, not only gifting the treble bell, but also paying for the nave and the passages between the north and south doors, to be laid with freestone.  Like the Longe family earlier, the Raymonds left charities to the parish.

 

The monumental memorial to Robert Longe on the north wall of the Chancel is very large and tall, extending right up into the roof timbers.  Robert died in 1656 and Pevsner points out that there is a similarly elaborate monument in Felbrigg Church to Thomas Windham, which was made by Martin Morley of Norwich.  The monument to Robert Longe is of black and white marble and, as well as its many details, has a lengthy incription in Latin.  He and his two wives are buried under ledger stones, close to the altar; again the inscriptions are in Latin.

 

Rood Screen:

According to Simon Cotton, a bequest was made in 1484 for the making of the rood screen, the Rood Loft and its staircase. The Rood Loft would appear to have been massive with parclose screens, as can be judged by the slots in the easternmost piers and all was made of oak.  The base of the rood screen has survived and has much mutilated paintings of saints, some associated with Old Testament prophesies referring to the birth of Christ.  The six figures on the south side  (facing west) are; St Denis, St Jerome, St Walstan, King Henry VIth, St Catherine of Alexandria and St Margaret of Antioch. 

 

It is rare to find a painting of Henry VI  who was popularily revered as a saint after his death in 1461. His emblem was a Yale, a mythological figure with tusks and horns resembling part horse, part elephant and extends down into the cill where burn marks indicate votive candles were placed. St Walstan is an east Anglian saint born at Bawburgh near Norwich. He is the patron saint of agricultural labourers and appears on 27 or so screens mostly around Norwich. On the Ludham screen he is crowned and holds a sceptre and scythe. 

 

“All Saints’ screen is an important example, even in the context of a region rich in figurative rood screens, and can be linked to other painted works in Norfolk ……….the presence of doors places it in a fairly elite group of screens, including Gooderstone, Salle and Cawston and the doors at Foulden are closely related to the painting on the screen at Belaugh”.

 

The west side of the two gates portray the four Evangelists:

St Matthew and St Mark     - Northern Gates

St John and St Luke            - Southern Gates

 

The north and east sides of the Rood Screen were completely painted over with tarrish brown paint many centuries ago (Simon Knott says 16th century Anglican iconoclasts were responsible).  

 

At her last inspection, Dr Lucy Wrapson of Hamilton Kerr, Cambridge, brought not only conservators to stabilise the exposed paint, but a cameraman also able to use ultraviolet light, the hope being that it would confirm the existence of paintings that have been thoroughly obscured by the iconoclasts.  Unfortunately, the result was not conclusive either way, but Dr Wrapson emphasised that the painting that remains visible is of very high quality and connects Foulden with a prominent school of East Anglian artists. 

 

Unfortunately, the rood loft stairs were added with total disregard of the beautiful east window of the south aisle.  It must have been the best of all the lovely Decorated windows in the church, but the stairs were built into a third of it.

 

The staircase remains (with its ancient door), but its construction resulted in long term instability to the east end of the south aisle and to the Chancel arch – how critical this had become was revealed at the investigative stage of a major restoration programme in 2010 and the cost of rectifying it resulted in some of the other planned works having to be omitted. 

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Stained Glass:

While the date of approximately 1550 for the abandonment and demolition of St Edmunds Church (NHE) suggests that it was a relatively early victim of the Reformation, we do not have a date for the assault on the Rood Screen of All Saints. Presumably, the uprights and the rood loft were removed in the 16th century when the Anglican iconoclasts disfigured or obscured the screen’s paintings. Blomefield records that the perpendicular windows installed in the Chancel in the 15th century were of stained glass “beautified with the portraitures of the 12 Apostles, three in each window” and describes them, and other stained glass in the nave, as being extant when the book was written in the 18th century.

 

It is surprising that the stained glass of the Chancel should have been spared when the Rood Screen was so remorselessly attacked, but it is possible that the Chancel stained glass was spared at the behest of Gonville and Caius College, the Lay Rectors, who may have funded it in the first place.  Whether the statues and glazing of the other stained glass of All Saints were destroyed in the 16th century or later, during Cromwell’s time, is not known. The Architect’s Report of 1976 refers to, “Extensive (probably 17th Century) ‘Crown’ window glazing”.

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Cromwell’s soldiers were active in the area during the Civil War, but the major changes that the Puritans brought to the look of the interior of All Saints were mostly 18th century:

 

• The substitution of clear glazing for stained glass (which has left the church most wonderfully light).

• The installations of box pews along the walls of the Chancel and aisles.

• The large wooden Decalogue.

• The Commonwealth Communion Table (present-day altar).

• The traces of lettering on the north aisle wall (it was common for scriptural quotes to be substituted for pre-existing medieval wall paintings).

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Wealthy Benefactors:

The very high quality of the work of the stonemasons displayed in the fine flowing traceries of the nave windows and of the work of those who painted the Rood Screen panels, together with the skills of those who carved the imaginative late medieval arm rests of the nave pews, all combine to suggest that the stained glass of the Chancel and elsewhere would have been of an equally high quality, and that prior to the Reformation, All Saints had wealthy benefactors willing to the meet the cost of the most highly skilled artisans and fully endorsing the pre-Reformation religious expression.

 

The fact that a mason of Martin Morley’s skills should be commissioned to make the Longe monument at Foulden indicates that, changes in religious interpretation and expression notwithstanding, Foulden continued to attract wealthy benefactors who wanted the best that could be afforded for their church of All Saints.

 

The 18th century box pews were made of the very best quality of pine and given a particularly specialised stain that gave them every appearance of being made of oak. 

 

White’s Directory describes Foulden as being a particularly charitable parish.  At the time of the Great Enclosure Act, 300 acres were “left open for supplying occupiers of the ancient cottages with pastorage and fuel”. Both the Longes and the Raymonds left money in trust “for the most industrious parishioners”, as did Robert Fuller and other donors including Edmund Atmere, a shepherd who died in 1579.  Burham Raymond also left £5 yearly for the free education of 6 poor boys and 6 poor girls.

 

So, whilst the Longe monument in the Chancel and, to a lesser extent, the Raymond monument at the junction of the nave and Chancel revealed that ostentation was thought to be perfectly compatible with puritanism, the Christian charitable ethic was still very much alive.

 

Simon Knott’s perceptive comment on these monuments is that “they seem peculiarly out of sorts with the mystery of the screen, as if symptomatic of the change of emphasis after the Reformation from the authority of the priesthood to the power of the nobility”.  

 

Interior of the Church:

The interior of the church has noble proportions, the nave being elegant and lofty with four bay arcades of plain octagonal pillars.  There are two–light clerestory windows above each arcade with semi-circular heads, which are unusual for the period.  The windows of the aisles display the very fine flowing tracery of the Decorated period with a variety of curves and shapes.  These aisles are immensely tall and the vertical emphasis is pronounced by the high pointed arches of the windows and the fact that the nave windows are quite low and the centre aisle very broad.

 

On the west wall of the north aisle it is possible to make out a circular Consecration Cross. There would have been a number of these internally and externally when the church was originally dedicated, but few of the latter survive nationally, most having weathered away.

 

The pews are late medieval with poppy-head bench ends and wonderful carvings on the arm rests of animals and birds, many of them grotesque mythological beasts.  Regrettably, all have been stained in modern times.

 

A 15th century pulpit survived into the 20th century before being removed and burnt on the advice of an archdeacon.

 

The font is 15th century and quite plain, but with a nicely cut stem of Caen stone, which shows how it was originally set against one of the piers.  The font cover has a wrought iron decoration and inscription saying “In memorium G.R.Sutton, bapt. Mar 12 1826, Obit Oct 10 1888”.  

 

The funeral bier is kept in the church and is a most superior one on four large wheels with leaf springs.  A brass plate says, “This hearse was purchased by voluntary contributions in the parish of Foulden for the use of all Denominations June 22 1911”. 

 

The Chancel has 17th century panelled dada on the east wall with a carved frieze.

 

The organ is early Victorian and a good one brought to the church by the Amherst family.  

 

The north aisle has a large Roll of Honour to the pupils of Foulden School who served, and those who were killed, in WW1.

 

All Saints has a 16th century silver chalice inscribed “Foulden”, a silver flagon and 2 patens.

 

The brass lectern was brought in from elsewhere, possibly when the pulpit was removed.  There is a small brass lectern and also a brass cross, brass candlesticks and a brass collection plate.

 

The sanctuary chair was hand made by James Armiger at Buckenham in 1887 and presented by the Dowager Lady Amhurst  of Hackney in 1910.

 

The bird gates fitted to the North and South Nave Doors are a gift from Sylvia Turtle whose father was Rector of Oxburgh and Vicar of Foulden in the 1940s. Together with a much improved drainage system which English Heritage was persuaded by architect Ruth Blackman to finance, the bird gates have allowed a vastly improved aeration of the interior fabric of the church.

 

The Collapse of the Tower:

Ladbroke’s drawing of 1820 shows the tower partially collapsed with most of its east wall still standing and part of its staircase (so often the weak spot that caused so many Norfolk towers to collapse) exposed. 

 

According to Bryant’s history, the remains of the tower were in a similar condition in 1803, but more ivy covered.  The Victorians built a simple bell cote with one bell cast by W. Dobson in 1807.

 

In 1950 or 1951, either accidentally or intentionally, the ivy caught fire and brought down the rest of the tower.  The TGI Listing describes “a plain chamford tower arch of two orders on polygonal responds”.  This tower arch is walled up with a little glazing in its apex and a tiny door which gave access to a former coal shed.

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Historical Changes:

To what extent parishioners approved of the local changes over three centuries from pre-Reformation beliefs and practices to the more austere and forbidding 18th century Puritanical interpretation of the Scriptures is unknown, but no references exist to any organised local opposition.

 

However, the stonemason, Martin Morley, who made the impressive monument to Robert Longe in the 17thcentury, clearly had little sympathy with puritanism, as he was heavily implicated the in the violent riots in Norwich following the banning of Christmas.

 

In 1659, Mrs. Longe of “ffoulden” was ordered to find one horse for Colonel Gurdon’s troops at an attempt to restore Charles II. 

 

Moreover, Ann Lawley (mother to commissioner John Lawley) was married and worshipped at All Saints in the 19th century, but later joined the Primitive Methodists, who had a chapel at the west end of Vicarage Road, preferring the less formal style of worship.

 

It would seem that Anglican puritanism did not necessarily bring the church closer to those it purported to serve and, in some cases, alienated them.

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Lighting and Heating:

The church has recently been rewired and the gas heaters have been discarded and are to be replaced by electric heaters.

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Nadine Marrs    

April 2023