St Nicholas, Blakeney

Foundation to 1547 St Nicholas is the parish church of Blakeney, Norfolk, a small English town with a history dating back to at least early Neolithic times. It was one of a number of small ports opening onto the sheltered inlet of Blakeney Haven, and exported a range of products including fish, grain, and timber. Domesday recorded an early church at Snitterley, but its location is unknown, and it may not have been the present site of St Nicholas. There are scheduled monument and Grade II listed ruins of a medieval building in the salt marshes north of the present town described as "Blakeney Chapel", but, despite the name, it now seems likely that this was a domestic dwelling rather than a religious edifice. Another possible chapel site east of the Glaven was shown on an 1835 map, but there is no documentation to support that identification. The nearby Carmelite friary had its own church by 1321, built on land donated by tenants of William de Roos, "that the Carmelite friars, by the King's licence, and that of Sir William Roos, might inhabit therein for ever, and might build a chapel". The friars were also given 100 marks to build their church, in return for which they undertook "to pray for the good estate of the said Sir William Roos and his Lady Maud ... and to have and to hold that lord and lady, and their heirs, for their principal founders". Its hilltop location is unusual for the area; most nearby churches are built on mounds near water. The new church was dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, and the living was first recorded as being in the gift of Sir John de Cockfield, passing to his Bacon descendants before its acquisition by the Abbot and Convent of Langley in 1375. The abbey controlled more than 60 Norfolk parishes, and the living of Blakeney was within its gift for the next sixty years, ending with the dissolution of the abbey in 1435. The patronage seems then to have passed to the Earl of Sussex, and the thriving port of Blakeney was no exception. Only the chancel avoided major reconstruction in 1434, probably because of its association with the Carmelite friary; John Calthorpe specified in his will of 1530 that he was to buried "in the White ffryes of Sniterlie [Blakeney] in the myddys of the chancel". The Perpendicular nave and the 31 m (104 ft) west tower were part of the 1434 rebuilding, but the unusual second, slender, tower at the north-east corner of the church was of a later date. Reformation and after The English Reformation inevitably affected St Nicholas. Edward VI's 1547 injunction decreed that all images in churches were to be dismantled or destroyed, including stained glass, shrines, roods, statues and bells, and altars were to be dismantled and replaced by wooden tables. Blakeney did not escape these changes; an Inventory of Church Goods of 1552 and official visitations later in the century revealed that the chancel was falling into decay and "the church porche defiled with cattel". Nevertheless, in 1854 there were Non-conformist chapels of three denominations, of which only the Methodist remains. to rest on The church was originally constructed of flint with stone dressings, Major renovations were carried out from 1981 to 1983; these comprised repairs to the north aisle roof and the east tower, plastering and limewashing of the chancel, replacement of the old electrical and heating systems, and minor work on the organ. The benefice has expanded during the long history of its church. Cockthorpe and Little Langham parish was added in 1606, Glandford in 1743, Wiveton in 1922, The parish is in the deanery of Holt, the Diocese of Norwich and the Province of Canterbury. The rector originally received tithes to support himself and the church, The state had supported poorer clergy since the introduction of Queen Anne's Bounty in 1704, but since 1947 the Church Commissioners have been responsible for arranging the stipends and pensions of Anglican priests. ==Description==

St Nicholas, Blakeney, is a large Gothic parish church with an aisled nave, a deep chancel of two bays, a large tower at the western end, and a smaller tower at the eastern end, to the north of the chancel. The north porch was rebuilt in 1896. They rest on stone plinths, each bearing carved shields, and is separated from the aisles on north and south sides by arcades of six bays. It is lit by Perpendicular windows, each aisle bay window having four lights apiece, with three-light windows in the clerestory above. Its walls were raised in the 15th century by constructing a chamber above the vaulting using stone from the demolished 13th-century nave, Lincoln Cathedral and St Martins in Ockham. The chancel contains three simple sedilia, or priest's seats, with trefoil arches and round columns. The sacristry behind the altar has a small lancet window, is lit by a single two-light window. ==Furnishings and fixtures==

The octagonal font dates from the 15th century; its carved panels alternate images of the symbols of the Four Evangelists with seated figures of the Doctors of the Church (Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, and Pope Gregory I). The stalls with their misericords were restored in 1913. In the more tolerant climate of Elizabethan England, the excesses of extreme Protestantism were curbed by centralised control of the Church of England, the Act of Uniformity and the Book of Common Prayer. Most churches then had to buy a new chalice; Blakeney's was purchased in 1567, and exchanged for another in 1716. One lost treasure is a "Map of the World" (Mappa Mundi et Chroniculum Mundi), which was recorded as present in the church in 1368. This is thought more likely to be a version of Ranulf Higdon's Polychronicon, a geographical text, than a true map like the Hereford Mappa Mundi. The east window dating from 1895 represents the Te Deum, and the south windows, glazed in 1900, tell the story of the early British church. Some 15th-century fragments of the original Norwich School glass that had been buried in the churchyard during the Reformation were incorporated into one of the otherwise plain windows in the north aisle in 1938, showing "Christ rising from the tomb", with six figures above. The angel's legs are clothed in "feather tights", believed to have been derived from costumes worn in medieval religious plays. The north porch is flanked by two blue-themed modern stained glass windows by Jane Gray from 2002, one dedicated to the RAF, the other to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). The current reredos and altar were erected in 1923, as was a wooden war memorial in the north aisle. At Blakeney, as elsewhere, the formerly coloured walls are now the plain white typical of English churches. ==Memorials==

John Calthorpe's "synfull body" lies at the eastern end of the nave under a marble gravestone and a brass plaque that carries his arms and a Latin inscription describing him as , "a founder [benefactor] of the convent of friars". A large wooden board acts as a war memorial, listing those locals who died in various military engagements. The clock in the west tower was donated by a Mrs Cooke in 1945 in memory of her late husband and sons. ==Medieval graffiti==

The interiors of most Norfolk churches contain much pre-Reformation graffiti, unless they have been heavily limewashed or resurfaced. The churches of the Glaven ports in general, and Blakeney in particular, conform to this pattern. St Nicholas has an extensive array of prayers, merchant's marks and other symbols, but is notable for the large number of depictions of ships, at least 30, heavily concentrated in the nave towards the eastern end of the south aisle. There is a side altar there of unknown dedication, and an empty niche that would have once held the image of a saint. The pillars were painted red in the Middle Ages, and ship images scratched into the soft, chalky stone would have been much more conspicuous than they are now. It is likely that the images, mostly of smaller ships, were created as votive offerings by the seafaring inhabitants of the port. The carving of ship graffiti in religious buildings is a tradition in ports going back to the Bronze Age, and has been found across Europe. Mason's marks were used by the stonemason to identify his work, and in the days of the medieval craft guilds may also have had mystical or religious significance. In England, the use of these marks became widespread after the Norman Conquest. Similarly, merchants had their own marks to identify their products, and these frequently appeared on houses, gravestones and church walls. ==People==

in the top panels. The long patronage of the Calthorpes under their various incarnations as the Lords Calthorpe, Gough-Calthorpes and Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpes has already been noted. A Henry Calthorpe was rector from 1743 to 1781, and was followed by Richard Thomas Gough, who held the living for 43 years. Gough and Richard Henry Tillard, incumbent from 1858 to 1906, are commemorated by plaques in the chancel. Of the other rectors, Mowbray O'Rorke had been Bishop of Accra from 1913, but accepted the Blakeney living in 1924, remaining until he retired in 1939, and Clifford Leofric Purdy (Jim) Bishop, rector from 1949 to 1953, rose to become Bishop of Malmesbury from 1962. A notable outsider buried here is Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin a leading British racing driver and one of the "Bentley Boys" of the 1920s. ==Services and congregation==

The rector of this Church of England parish as of 2019 is the Rev Richard Lawry. As with most Anglican churches in England, the congregation is mainly elderly, although there are monthly family services focussed on children. There is also a monthly laying on of hands for healing, and sometimes other variants from the standard format involving music or Taizé-influenced worship. The parish accepts the diocese's guidance on permitting baptism and marriage in church after a divorce, and claims to work closely with its Catholic and Methodist neighbours. St Nicholas is also used for non-religious events such as flower festivals, craft workshops and musical performances, and it has won diocesan tourism awards for its in-church information facilities. It was also featured in the ''Daily Telegraph's'' list of 100 favourite churches, ==References==

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