St Mary, Hassingham, Norfolk

I Location

Site Location
Hassingham
National Grid Reference
NGR TG 369 054
County
traditional: Norfolk
now: Norfolk
Diocese
medieval: East Anglia
now: Norwich
Dedication
medieval: not confirmed
now (or name of monument): St Mary
Type of building/monument
Parish church

II General Description

The church comprises chancel, aisleless nave and round W tower. All that certainly survives from the 12thc. is the W tower and the S doorway. The nave was rebuilt, or perhaps renovated, in the 13thc., as the lancet window in the S wall indicates. The interior of the church was remodelled in the 15thc. when a new arch to the tower and to the chancel was inserted. The date of 1849 above the S doorway probably records a refurbishment at that date. Romanesque sculpture is found on the S doorway.

III Exterior Features

1. Doorways

(i) S doorway, nave

S doorway, arch.

S doorway, arch.

S doorway, R side, arch.

S doorway, R side, arch.

S doorway, general view.

S doorway, general view.

Round-headed, of one order.

First order

No bases, plain chamfered jambs, with stop chamfers at top and bottom (compare Norwich Cathedral, W doorways). No capitals. The imposts are chamfered with a quirk or groove along the upright. The R impost is shorter than the L, on the face. The face of the arch has a thick row of centrifugal chevron with cogwheel edge, followed by a double row of shallow-carved chevron, of the profile hollow/roll. The double chamfered label has a row of pipeline billet on each chamfered surface. The two rows are syncopated.

Dimensions

h. of opening 2.19 m
w. of opening 0.97 m

VII History

In the hundred of Blofield, Hassingham, with the village of Limpenhoe, paid dues to the king before 1066. It was held by Earl Ralph before the Norman Conquest but at the Domesday survey, was held from King William by Godric.

VIII Comments/Opinions

The doorway is described by Pevsner as Late Norman, perhaps because of the chamfered jambs. The jambs might not be original, in which case the doorway may have been salvaged from an earlier build and reset as we see it, minus its colonnettes and capitals. Syncopated billet of the type described here was also used at Norwich Cathedral, in the apse arcade (1096-1118). It is also found on doorways elsewhere in the county, for example at St Andrew’s, Barton Bendish.

IX Bibliography

  • N. Pevsner and B. Wilson, The Buildings of England: Norfolk: Norwich and North East, Harmondsworth, 1962, revised 1997, 1:542.
  • N. Pevsner and B. Wilson, The Buildings of England: Norfolk, Harmondsworth 1962 (repr. 2000), 1:542.
  • Domesday Book: Norfolk, P. Brown (ed), London and Chichester, 2 vols, 1984.
  • H. J. Dukinfield Astley, Memorials of Old Norfolk, London 1908, 197, 213.