Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Redenhall, with northern churchyard walls and gate piers

Summary

A medieval parish church, with fabric dating from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries, and phases of restoration or renewal in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Reasons for Designation

The Church of the Assumption, Redenhall, is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* For its Perpendicular Gothic architecture;
* For the exceptional quality of the craftsmanship found in its architectural details and internal fixtures, including those of the Victorian and Edwardian phases of restoration;
* As an outstanding example of East Anglian flint flushwork.

Historic interest:
* As a complete medieval parish church, with phases of construction from the C14 to early C16;
* For the site's long history of continuous Christian worship for over eight centuries;

Group value:
* For its historic functional relationship with the Grade II listed Rectory to the west of the church.

History

Redenhall was shown as a relatively large settlement in the 1086 Domesday survey, but no church was recorded here at that time. Evidence of an early post-conquest church was discovered beneath the existing building in 1858 when heating works required the excavation of the church floor. ‘The lines of a former church were clearly traced under the nave arcades and chancel step, with those of a circular tower close to the steeple turret door’.

The large size of the building reflects its former status as the parish church of Harleston and Wortwell, and its role within the medieval Deanery of Redenhall. In the late medieval period, the church received the patronage of wealthy figures such as Thomas Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, and the de la Pole family. After the Reformation, the Gawdy family were notable patrons.

Richard de Argentein was the first rector to be recorded in around 1264. The earliest phase of construction to survive is the C14 chancel, which ‘weeps’ slightly northwards.
The nave and west tower were begun in 1460, replacing earlier structures. Work was still underway in 1498. An in-filled rood stair indicates the former presence of a medieval rood screen and loft. A ‘great bell’ cast in Bury St Edmunds was installed in 1514. A pinnacle with a ‘shell tun’ rebus referring to Richard Shelton, rector, must date after his appointment in 1518. The tower is a major example of East Anglian flint flushwork, comparable to contemporary church towers in nearby Eye and Laxfield (Suffolk), and possibly the work of the same craftsmen. In 1616 the tower was struck by lightning and badly damaged. The event and its repair is commemorated with the date shown in iron plates on the north side. The upper storey of the vestry was removed in 1634.

The Gawdys may have constructed the chapel on the north side of the nave which contains the funerary monuments of the inhabitants of Gawdy Hall. Painted ceiling decoration of the late-C16 survives on the roof timbers above a late-Georgian ceiling. A gable and pitched roof over the chapel was removed in 1825 and a continuous aisle roof created. The organ was built by G M Holdich in 1843. The chancel was restored and its roof replaced in 1864. The nave and aisle roofs were restored in 1872 and include Victorian carvings and timbers alongside original medieval fabric. The chapel was restored by John Sancroft Homes of Gawdy Hall in 1926.

The churchyard boundary walls are multi-phased. They include a set of gate piers likely constructed in the early-C18 with ‘memento mori’ finials. Early gravestones within the churchyard commemorate the Fuller family, whose members included two colonists, Edward and Samuel, who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620.

Details

A medieval parish church, with fabric dating from the C14 to the early C16, with phases of restoration or renewal in the C19 and early C20. The multi-phase boundary wall includes C18 gate piers with crowned skull finials.

MATERIALS

The walls are constructed of flint with limestone dressings, and the roofs are covered in metal or slate.

PLAN

The church is traditionally orientated east-west. It has a nave with lower north and south aisles, a north porch with parvise, a chancel with a north vestry, and a west tower.

EXTERIOR

The church stands in a very large and elevated churchyard on the south side of High Road.

The west tower is four stages high with polygonal buttresses and stepped crenelations. There is a striking display of flint flushwork panels on the west face, on three sides of the bell-chamber, and on all sides of the parapet and buttresses. ‘1616’ is written on the north face in large iron numerals. The west door is within a Perpendicular Gothic portal with angel spandrels, a shield of friezes and flanking statuary niches with heraldic crests of the church’s donors. The doors themselves are marked with tools of the farrier’s trade, possibly indicating gild patronage.

The nave roof has a shallow pitch and terminates in a small bellcote at the east end. The Perpendicular clerestorey is faced in limestone and has eight three-light traceried windows.

The north aisle has a two-storey porch with flint flushwork on the north face, crenelated parapet and angled buttresses. There is a polygonal stair turret on the west side. Above the central archway with quatrefoil spandrels is a niche with two small windows either side. Within the ground floor is a tierceron vault with crowned bosses. Beyond the porch are three three-light Perpendicular windows, followed by the Gawdy chapel. The chapel has cement render, a three-light window, and a small doorway beneath a carved tortoise. The vestry at the east end has two-storeys of smaller two-light windows.

The east elevation is covered in cement render. It has a five-light window with Perpendicular tracery.

The south side of the C14 chancel has stepped buttresses, a priests’ door, one reworked Perpendicular gothic window and a Y-tracery window. The buttress adjacent to the priest’s door has a group of scratch dials. The south aisle of the nave has three three-light Perpendicular windows and a doorway in a two-centred arch with a trefoil window above.

INTERIOR

The nave is basilican in section. The floors are covered in ledger slabs and pamments. The walls are plastered and limewashed. The arcades are four bays long with octagonal piers and pointed arches. A hammerbeam roof rises from carved stone corbels. The C19 oak pews have bench ends carved with blind tracery.

At the west end, in front of the tower arch, is an organ built by Holdich in 1843. The screen of linenfold panelling around its base was installed in 1897 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. At the base of the tower is a late-C17 staircase with a closed string, vase-and-bottle balusters and broad handrail. The stair cuts across a painted C15 consecration cross. Within the ringing chamber an historic exhortation is painted onto the wall reading “Use no Bad Words! THIS is a Sacred Place!!!”

In the south aisle the octagonal stone font was replaced in the C19. It bears the signs of the evangelists alternating with angels holding symbols of the Passion in panels on each side and stands on a stem supported by four lions.

The C16 south door has linenfold panels and the initials A and T, possibly referring to William Alen and William Tompson, churchwardens in the 1550s.

Above the chancel arch are the arms of Queen Anne, installed in 1707.

The 1858 pulpit has a ‘wine glass’ form and blind tracery carvings.

The Gawdy chapel is approached through a private pew with carved fronts, and a gateway with tortoise finials. The chapel reredos is a monument to the Wogan family, produced by J. Francis Moore for Elizabeth Wogan (d.1788), it shows a woman’s soul received into heaven.

There are several noteworthy funerary monuments, including medieval ledger slabs, the chest tomb of Sir Thomas Gawdy (d.1588) and a mannerist wall-mounted plaque to Tobias Frere (d.1655) erected in the Commonwealth and attributed to Martin Morley.

The 1920 rood screen was made from oak grown at Gawdy Hall and incorporates 12 C15 painted panels that have been heavily overpainted.

The chancel comprises a choir and sanctuary and is dominated by a mixture of late-C19 and early-C20 joinery. This includes the choir stalls, panelling (by J.A. Reeve), intricately carved reredos (1897) and triple sedilia. The sanctuary rises three steps on woodblock floors. The waggon roof was created in 1864.

The vestry originally had a second storey but is today a single volume. A piscina and aumbry on the south wall suggest it may have been a chapel or chantry historically. A segmental panel with an arched frame on the south wall that shows the tetragrammaton appears to be a relocated remnant from a C17 or C18 reredos.
The earliest stained glass to survive in the church is that by S.C. Yarington in the Gawdy Chapel (1825). Later glass includes some by Ward & Nixon (north aisle, around 1850), and Thomas Baillie (south chancel, around 1866), and Herbert Bryans (east window, early C20).

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES

The northern churchyard boundary wall is around 140m long and varied in character according to its different phases of building and rebuilding. It is largely brick laid in a variety of bonds, with round brick copings, with lower portions in flint towards the east.

The principal gateway stands at the top of a flight of steps in line with the north porch. It has two brick piers with limestone capitals, bases and scrolling consoles at the top of a pair of brick jambs. The piers are surmounted by limestone ‘memento mori’ skulls crowned with laurel wreaths.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

225937

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Wilson, B, The Buildings of England: Norfolk 2: North-West and South, (2002), 609-610
Chandler, C, Notes on the parish of Redenhall with Harleston in the county of Norfolk, compiled chiefly from the records in the town chest, (1896)

Websites
Norfolk Churches, accessed 20/08/2025 from http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/redenhall/redenhall.htm

Other
Francis Blomefield, 'Hundred of Earsham: Redenhall', in An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 5 (London, 1806), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk/vol5/pp358-372 [accessed 20 August 2025].

End of official list entry

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