Norfolk Heritage Explorer

Record Details

Summary

St Peter's Church, sometimes known as West Head church, is a small mission church built around 1908 to the designs of E. Douglas Hoyland of London, in terracotta blocks supplied by the Bristol Fireclay Company. It was built for the Revd. J Percy de Putron as a 'New Mission Church' in the western part of the parish to serve the growing rural population. It is thought that the Church Army were involved in stirring interest, but little is known about the origins of the church. There is also little recorded about Revd De Putron, save that he trained at University College Durham and was ordained in 1892.

The use of terracotta blocks, rather than the usual flint, carrstone or brick, makes St Peter's church unique in Norfolk. This is particularly true as the blocks are themselves partly bespoke, varying in shape and size according to their function. The lower courses have a brown glaze, and above this the bricks are of varying yellow colours. Those that form the windows and door dressings, or the battlements of the tower, were specially made from moulded blocks. The bricks fit together by engaging the lug on one brick to the recesses moulded into the next.

The interior is unusual in that the timber-frame, around which the terracotta walls were built, is exposed in its entirety. It is this frame that takes the majority of the weight of the roof, not the terracotta walls. The church contains a Norman font removed from Stow Bardolph church of the Holy Trinity (NHER 2433) in the 19th century and found in use as a flowerpot. The communion table was used by the Rev J Adams in the second Afghan War, (1878 to 1880), the first chaplain to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

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