St Nicholas, Kings Lynn: the earliest dateable angel roof in East Anglia. Ca. 1405-10. A spectacular statement of the wealth and confidence of Lynn merchants in the early C15th. The church is closed for restoration until mid-2015, see this link for details.
St Agnes, Cawston, Norfolk: a soaring single hammer beam roof, probably dating from 1460-70. The angels are over 6ft tall, and uniquely, stand upright on the hammer beams.
St Mary, Gissing, Norfolk: a beautiful, small-scale, double hammer beam roof, in a little country church which has the intricacy and sparkling interest of a Faberge egg.
St Peter Mancroft, Norwich: one of five angel roof churches in Norwich. The roof dates from the mid C15th a time when Norwich was the second largest city in the country. This is virtuoso medieval carpentry; fan vaulting in wood conceals structural hammer beams.
St Mary, West Walton, Norfolk: tie beams alternate with hammer beams, bearing angels, carved in a very distinctive and graphic style. One of the angels carries a shield showing Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss.
Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk: a single hammer beam roof dating from ca. 1445. And don't miss Sir Ninian Comper's glittering, gothic revival reredos.
Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, Suffolk: one of the most beautiful of all angel roofs. Paired angels, still with some of their original colouring, run down the central roof beam of this wonderfully light and airy church near the Suffolk coast. When he visited in April 1644 the Puritan iconoclast William Dowsing ordered the angels to be taken down within 8 days. Happily, his instructions were ignored.
St Mary, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk: erected ca. 1445, and paid for by the rich cloth merchant John Baret (whose cadaver tomb and chantry chapel can be seen in the church) the quality of the carving in this angel roof is astonishing. 11 pairs of angels flank the nave, arrayed as if in procession towards the altar. The figures, which are each about 6 feet tall, are all subtly different, with faces which seem to have been taken from life. In his will, Baret says he had the angel roof made "as a remembrance of me and my friends".
St Andrew, Cotton, Suffolk: a glorious false double hammer beam roof, the wood bleached pale by age. Bequest evidence suggests that it dates from the 1470s. Many of the angels appear to be later replacements, the originals having probably been destroyed in the 1640s.
St Mary, Earl Stonham, Suffolk: a beautiful pendant single hammer beam roof, with decorative carving of great refinement and intricacy. The roof alternates full length angels (all decapitated by iconoclasts in the 1640s) with so called pendant hammer beams (pendant because the vertical hammer post extends down below the horizontal hammer beam). The pendant ends are very finely carved.
St Mary, Mildenhall, Suffolk: probably dating from the early C15th, this roof alternates tie beams with cosmetic hammer beam angels above the clerestory windows (the same pattern as at St Nicholas, Kings Lynn, which dates from ca 1405-10). The angels are carved in a very distinctive style (deeply incised, squamous hair, "goggle' eyes). The hand of the same carver can be seen in some of the angels at St Nicholas in Lynn.
St Mary, Woolpit, Suffolk: a beautifully ornate false double hammer beam roof, generally thought to date from ca. 1440-1460. The angels are Victorian replacements, carved by Henry Ringham in 1862. The iconoclast William Dowsing records that his deputy visited the church in February 1644, but makes no mention of the roof angels, suggesting that they had already been removed.