Banningham, Norfolk - St Botolph: Rebuilt in the C15th, St Botolph’s has a single hammerbeam roof, with half-angels adorning the undersides of the hammers. The spandrels (the pierced, fretwork-like sections above the hammerbeams) are particularly elegant.
Banningham, Norfolk - St Botolph: Close-up of C15th angel bearing a chalice and host. Banningham’s angels were repainted in the 1950s.
Banningham, Norfolk - St Botolph: The angel roof. There are 14 angels in all (including those on the hammerbeams against the walls at each end of the Nave). The spandrels at the East end, at the top of this photograph, have masterful carvings of angels swinging censers.
Banningham, Norfolk - St Botolph: An angel carrying a shield with a heart.
Blakeney, Norfolk - St Nicholas: Blakeney on the North Norfolk coast was a prosperous port in the C15th, with the rare privilege of being permitted to trade in gold, silver and horses. The angel roof dates from ca. 1435, when the nave was rebuilt. It is a single hammerbeam structure with half-angels on the finials of the hammers (as at Banningham, above). The spandrels at Blakeney appear to have been replaced.
Blakeney, Norfolk - St Nicholas: Angel on hammerbeam, dating from ca. 1435.
Booton, Norfolk - St Michael & All Angels: A fabulous anachronism. This is a late-C19th angel roof. Booton is the creation of the Reverend Whitwell Elwin (1816-1900), an eccentric Victorian cleric and man of letters who corresponded with Dickens, Thackeray and Sir Walter Scott, edited the High Tory Quarterly Review, and claimed to be a descendant of Pocahontas. Elwin was Rector here for 50 years, and from 1876 until his death in 1900, he enthusiastically remodelled the medieval church he had inherited. The resultant building is an exuberant Frankenstein pastiche, created by rebuilding or encasing the medieval church with architectural features culled from anywhere that took Elwin's fancy. Famously, the architect Edward Lutyens described it as “very naughty, but...in the right spirit”.
Booton, Norfolk - St Michael & All Angels: C19th roof angel, commissioned by the Reverend Whitwell Elwin. The angel carving is the work of James Minns, who also created the bull's head emblem for Colman's mustard. Elwin's choice of craftsmen for architecture, glass and sculpture was excellent and unstinting, largely funded by the generosity of rich female parishioners. The angel roof at Booton was (very loosely) inspired by that at Trunch in Norfolk, which Whitwell Elwin had known as a child.
Booton, Norfolk - St Michael & All Angels: C19th roof angel, commissioned by Whitwell Elwin and carved by James Minns. The angels originally carried lanterns in their hands, but do not now. Consequently the church is actually very dark inside.
Burlingham St Andrew, Norfolk - St Andrew: A demi-angel on the end of a hammerbeam plays a shawm. The two holes in the bell of the instrument are tuning vents, the disc at the mouthpiece end is called a pirouette. The shawm was played with high wind pressure; pressing the lips against the pirouette helped reduce air leakage. The faded paint on the figure is believed to be original. The roof is an arch-brace and hammerbeam structure; a bequest dates it to 1487.
Barney, Norfolk - St Martin: An angel at a beam intersection on the C15th arch-braced roof. The roof is decorated with angels and rose bosses.
Cawston, Norfolk - St Agnes: One of the most magnificent and imposing of angel roofs; a steeply pitched single hammer beam construction, spectacular in its scale, the quality of its sculpture and secondary detailing, and in its lavish use of timber. Cawston’s angels are over 6 feet tall from feet to wingtips, and, uniquely, stand upright on the hammer beams. The tracery in the spandrels above and below the hammer beams is superb, and demi-angels line the horizontal wall plates. No expense has been spared.
The church of St Agnes was built in the late fourteenth century by Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who died at the siege of Harfleur in 1415. His immediate heir fell at Agincourt five weeks later, one of the few high status English casualties of the battle, and the title passed to the second son, William. As chief adviser to the ineffectual Henry VI, William de la Pole was, by the 1440s, the most powerful man in England, becoming first Marquis and then Duke of Suffolk. It is tempting to assign the creation of so spectacular an angel roof to the de la Poles, and to see it as an assertion of their influence in the region. However, archaelogical evidence (the line of an earlier roof on the wall of the church tower) argues against a date during the years of de la Pole power, though stylistically such a date is plausible. From bequests, we know that internal refurnishing of the church was being undertaken in the 1460s (William de la Pole fell from power and was murdered in 1450), and Michael Begley has suggested to me in correspondence that the angel roof is more likely to date from 1470-80.
Cawston, Norfolk - St Agnes: One of the roof angels (which is over 8ft tall) standing on a hammerbeam, clad in a suit of feathers. We know that medieval actors portraying angels in pageants and mystery plays wore suits of feathers like this.
The tracery behind the hammerposts is superb, and demi-angels line the horizontal wall plates. No expense has been spared. Cawston’s roof is spectacular in its scale and the quality of its craftsmanship, and unique (I believe) in that its roof angels stand upright on the hammerbeams.
Cawston, Norfolk - St Agnes: Another of the roof angels standing on a hammerbeam, and clad in a suit of feathers. The paint on the figure is original.
Cawston, Norfolk - St Agnes: Another of the roof angels stands on a hammerbeam.
Downham Market, Norfolk - St Edmund: The angel is a heavy-handed Victorian restoration, dating from 1865 or 1899. The real glory of St Edmund lies not in its roof angels, but in its medieval glass. At the west end of the church, sealed off behind incongruous patio doors, is a medieval Harrowing of Hell showing redeemed souls, alive with grace. It is a breathtakingly beautiful work.
Emneth, Norfolk - St Edmund: A C15th tie-beam and arch-brace construction, with demi-angels on the tie-beams, and horizontal angels at the foot of the arch-braces.
Emneth, Norfolk - St Edmund: A C15th alternating tie-beam and arch-brace roof, with angels at the end of the arch-braces. Here the angel holds a host and chalice, symbols of the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Fincham, Norfolk - St Martin: C15th alternating arch-brace and hammerbeam roof. It has been suggested the roof dates from ca. 1450.
Fincham, Norfolk - St Martin: Detail of an angel on the C15th alternating hammerbeam, arch-brace roof. This is high-quality, characterful carving. Mortlock and Roberts suggest that there is some similarity with the carvings in the North Aisle of Mildenhall in Suffolk. Personally, I don't really see it. However, there are, I think, marked similarities with some of the angel carvings at St Clements, Outwell and the Fincham family were connected with both churches. Outwell's and Fincham's angels may be the work of the same hand.
Gissing, Norfolk - St Mary: An exquisite, miniature C15th double hammerbeam roof. Gissing is a glittering, Faberge egg of a church; small-scale, intricate, beautifully made. It has everything a church crawler could want. A round tower, a fabulous knapped flint porch, Norman arches, Saxon windows, grandiose armorial monuments, C17th whimsy and one of only four double hammerbeam roofs in Norfolk, and only 32 in the whole of England.
Gissing, Norfolk - St Mary: Close-up showing the two tiers of the C15th double hammer beam roof. The angels on the ends of the hammers carry shields bearing the emblems of saints.