Details
HARPLEY CHURCH LANE
TF 72 NE
1/34 Church of St. Lawrence.
15.8.60.
I
Parish church. C13 evident in interior and to south aisle, C14 tower and
chancel, C15 rebuilt nave and north aisle, south porch. Rubble flint with
knapped and squared flint and freestone dressings, leaded nave and aisles,
glazed chancel roofs. South-west tower, south porch, 5 bay nave and aisles,
3 bay chancel with north vestry. 4 stage south-west tower has stone plinth,
4 string course datestone, quoined angle buttresses with set offs. 4 2-light
Decorated tracery belfry windows. Battlemented parapet. South-east buttress
expanded as canted tower-stacks. Nave west gable has fine large 5-light
Perpendicular west window, 5 ogee headed lower lights, central transom,
elaborately intersected spandrel tracery. South-west angle buttress 5 bay
Perpendicular north aisle has one west and 5 north 3-light tracery windows.
Perpendicular north door. 5 bay Perpendicular clerestorey 5-light windows.
South aisle has complex history, beginning with 3 south side c.1500 2-light
'Y' tracery windows. One 5-light stepped lancet east window under single arch
c.1300. C14 2-light window at south-west junction with tower. Elaborate 2
bay Perpendicular south porch addition has 2 centred outer arch, gable with
panelling and 3 niches. Stone plinth, angle set off buttresses, stone parapet
and gable with angle spirelets. 2 north and south 2-light 2-centred arch
Perpendicular windows, on interior with panelling in between, rere arches
with shields. Fine richly moulded 2-centred inner arch house C15 oak door
with outer band of niched saints, tracery upper spandrel, lower ogee arched
wicket door with 2 angels and tracery panels under central transom division.
Aisle heightened during incumbency of John Brewe, Rector 1389-1421, clerk
and chaplain to Sir Robert Knollys, builder of Sculthorpe Church, Norfolk.
Freestone battlmented parapet with panelling, blank tracery, coats of arms
mainly of Knollys connections. Kneeling Angel at west, priest in rocket with
dry and book at east. Fine 3 bay chancel and north vestry addition by John
de Gurney, Rector 12 94-1332, also patron of Iwing. South side has one 2-light
window with ogee head one 2-light with barbed trefoil head both under 2-centred
arches, one 3-light Recticulated tracery window under ogee arch head. Fine
ogee arch subcusped priest's door. 3 south buttresses with set offs, stone
plinth, stong string course. East gable with set off buttresses has 3-light
Decorated east window, probably a replacement of 1878, with roundel with 6
trefoils in head. Elaborately crotchetted parapet gable to steeply pitched
roof. C14 north vestry. Interior: Perpendicular 5 bay north and south arcades,
octagonal columns on octagonal bases and capitals, double hollow chamfered
arches. Fine C15 nave roof with arched braced principals on wall posts,
elaborate wall plate and ridge collars with angels. C15 north aisle roof with
moulded principals and wall posts on coved heads. South aisle roof has C15
principals only surviving. C15 pierced back poppyhead benches throughout.
High Victorian font, and fine High Victorian 4 Evangelist pulpit, reading
desk. South aisle has 3 continuously moulded arches to tower door. Fine c.1300
Early English sedilia and piscina with collonnettes, cusped arches, pierced
spandrels. C14 in situ stained glass in east window. Chancel has C13 piers
with stiff leaf capitals, 2-centred Decorated arch above. Door into chancel
roof space. Large semi-octagonal internal rood stairs on north aisle side
of chancel arch. Fine C14 rood screen panels repantiled 1865, rich tracery
upper lights, central ogee arch. Chancel stucco High Victorian, perhaps 1878.
1878 roof. Matrix of bars to John de Gurney, legible inscription. Fine north
side heavily recut cusped ogee arch door with open work spandrels, C15
battlemented crested top. C15 4-centred arch Easter Sepulchre. South side
has mutilated Decorated sedilia with single battlemented capital and
elaborately cusped arch extant. Decorated piscina with triangular headed
arches, floriated spandrels, some diapering. See Mrs S.H. Jones "Notes on
Harpley Church" in Norfolk Archaeology, VIII, 1879, pp. 17-38.
Listing NGR: TF7887126067
