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Norfolk Heritage Explorer

Record Details

NHER Number:	6049
Type of record:	Building
Name:	SS Peter and Paul's Church, East Harling

Summary

This church was built around 1300 but much of the architecture that can be seen today dates to the 14th and 15th centuries. The west tower is topped by a 15th century spire. The church contains some important tombs. The famous east window is made of 15th century glass which was removed during World War Two but has now been restored. Iron Age or Early Saxon and Late Saxon pottery fragments have been found in the churchyard.

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Related web page

Location

Grid Reference:	TL 9899 8668
Map Sheet:	TL98NE
Parish:	EAST HARLING, BRECKLAND, NORFOLK
	HARLING, BRECKLAND, NORFOLK

Full description

July 1958. Listed, Grade I.
Listing Description excerpt:
Parish church. c.1300 with sporadic building programmes to c.1450, restored 1878-1879. Flint with ashlar dressings and lead roofs. West tower, nave, aisles and chancel. Tower c.1300 of three stages with angle buttresses. Statue niches to western buttresses under trefoil head and crocketted gable. Stair turret to south-east. Two-light arched belfry windows below pierced crenellated parapet of c.1450. Lead spire, also mid 15th century supported on eight flying buttresses each with crocketted finials forming corona...Octagonal 14th-century font with tracery panels on stem and quatrefoils on bowl. Two fragments of rood screen of c.1500 at west end of nave each of 3½ bays, painted and with tracery panels. South nave chapel screen to aisle 15th century…14th-century parclose screen divides chapel from nave...Fragment of fourth screen now incorporated into front of bench in chapel…
Information from (S1).
Please consult the National Heritage List for England (S1) for the current listing details.
P. Watkins (HES), 30 April 2021.

Basically around 1300, much 14th and 15th century additions. Important tombs.
For full details see report (S2).
E. Rose (NAU),15 January 1982.

1986.
Late Saxon, medieval and Iron Age or Early Saxon sherds from yard.
E. Rose (NAU), 9 September 1986.

September 2002.
Conservation of north nave clerestory window glass and ferramenta.
See (S3).
A. Rogerson (NLA), 29 January 2004.

East Harling Church is famous for the vast east window with its 15th century glass. After St Peter Mancroft it is probably the best collection in Norfolk. Unusually, the provenance of the glass is fairly well documented: we can be fairly certain that it came from this church originally. Still present after the Reformation, it was removed by the Harling family to the Hall in the early 17th century. They may have been Laudians wanting to preserve it from the intentions of the puritans, or merely thought it would look nice in their dining hall; whatever, we know that shortly before Blomefield visited here in the 1730s it was returned to the church and set in its present configuration. In 1939, when war threatened, it was removed again, being reset just before Cautley visited in the early 1950s. There are parts of at least three sequences here, two of which were almost certainly in the east window originally, and one which almost certainly wasn't. Essentially, the window contains two rosary sequences; the Joyful Mysteries of the Blessed Virgin, which include the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Assumption, and the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Blessed Virgin, which include the Crucifixion and the Pieta. However, this is open to interpretation, as we shall see. There is also the figure of St Mary of Magdala, which may once have been associated with a nave altar, and would have been located in a window there.
Information from (S4).
M. Dennis (NLA), 15 February 2006.

This is one of the sixty five Norfolk churches selected for (S5).
D. Gurney (NLA), 17 February 2006.

October 2010-February 2011. Watching Brief.
The removal of the wooden floor in the northern aisle and its associated brick dwarf walls revealed a compacted layer of orange sands and gravels. At some point in the post-medieval period, probably in the 18th century, a large trench was excavated parallel to and just to the north of the northern arcade. The purpose of the trench is not clear but it was backfilled with soft fine silty sands to level the surface for the laying of the wooden floor. Deposits to the immediately top the north of this area appear to relate to an earlier phase of the church with compact gravel suggesting a floor surface and a concentration of flints and dark brown silt along the centre of the trench possibly relating to a wall footing. A clay-lined shallow pit of unknown function was partially exposed. The casting of church bells in clay-lined pits is known to have taken place within church building but these features are usually more substantial.
See report (S6) for further details.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with the Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2011.395).
S. Howard (HES), 23 December 2011. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 16 May 2019.

2013. Watching brief.
Details to come.
A. Cattermole (HES), 29 July 2015.

Monument Types

FINDSPOT (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
FINDSPOT (Early Saxon - 410 AD to 650 AD)
FINDSPOT (Late Saxon - 851 AD to 1065 AD)
CHURCH (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
FINDSPOT (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
CHURCH (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)

Associated Finds

POT (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
POT (Early Saxon - 411 AD to 650 AD)
POT (Late Saxon - 851 AD to 1065 AD)
DOOR (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
DOOR (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
FONT (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
PISCINA (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
POT (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
ROOD SCREEN (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
WALL PAINTING (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
WINDOW (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
WINDOW (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)

Protected Status

Listed Building

Sources and further reading

---	Article in Serial: Manning, C. R. 1864. Lost brasses. Norfolk Archaeology. Vol VI pp 3-26. p 22.
---	Article in Serial: Boileau, J. P. 1864. Chest in the vestry of East Harling Church. Norfolk Archaeology. Vol VI pp 50-52.
---	Article in Serial: Manning, C. R. 1872. Ancient Lecterns Preserved in Norfolk Churches. Norfolk Archaeology. Vol VII pp 122-127. p 123; Fig.
---	Aerial Photograph: TL9886 C-E; TL9986 Q.
---	Newspaper Article: Eastern Daily Press. 1981-1986. [Articles and a letter to the editor regarding the organ at SS Peter and Paul's Church, East Harling].
---	Monograph: Bryant, T. H. 1901. Hundred of Guiltcross. The Churches of Norfolk. Vol VIII. pp 40-51.
---	Newspaper Article: Eastern Daily Press. 1981. A village spire that echoes city church. 18 April.
---	Record Card: NAU Staff. 1974-1988. Norfolk Archaeological Index Primary Record Card.
---	Unpublished Document: SS Peter and Paul, East Harling, Norfolk..
---	Newspaper Article: Eastern Daily Press. 1997. Project to halt church roof slide. 24 April.
---	Newspaper Article: Eastern Daily Press. 1997. [Photograph of tomb of Sir Thomas Lovell, SS Peter and Paul's Church]. 16 June.
---	Article in Serial: Lovell Harrison, G. 1914. A few Notes on the Lovells of East Harling. Norfolk Archaeology. Vol XVIII pp 46-77. p 62.
---	Monograph: Pevsner, N and Wilson, B. 1999. Norfolk 2: North-West and South. The Buildings of England. 2nd Edition. pp 319-320; Pl 23.
---	Monograph: Pevsner, N. 1962. North-West and South Norfolk. The Buildings of England. 1st Edition. pp 145-147; Pl 10b, Pl 41.
---	Newspaper Article: Eastern Daily Press. 2010. Every church tells a story. 27 July.
---	Newspaper Article: Eastern Daily Press. 2011. Vicar comes home to county. 11 June.
---	Website: King, D.. 2010 -. Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi. Medieval Stained Glass in Great Britain: The Medieval Stained Glass of Norfolk. https://www.cvma.ac.uk/publications/digital/norfolk/siteindex.html. 11 April 2022. East Harling: Parish Church of Sts Peter and Paul [accessed 11 April 2022].
---	Article in Serial: Cotton, S. 1981. Tradition and Authority in Churchbuilding. NARG News. No 26 pp 8-13. pp 12-13.
---	Secondary File: Secondary File.
---	Collection: Norfolk Historic Environment Record Staff. 1975-[2000]. HER Record Notes. Norfolk Historic Environment Service.
<S1>	Designation: Historic England. National Heritage List for England. List Entry 1077452.
<S2>	Unpublished Document: Rose, E.. 1978. Building Report.. Building Report.
<S3>	Unpublished Document: Blackman, R. A. 2002. The Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul at East Harling, Norfolk. A Specification for conserving the glass in the north nave clerestory windows, repairing the window stonework and retaining the ferramenta bars.
<S4>	Website: Knott, S.. 2005. St Peter and St Paul, East Harling. http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/eastharling/eastharling.htm. 25 June 2010.
<S5>	Publication: Jenkins, S. 2000. England's Thousand Best Churches.
<S6>	Unpublished Contractor Report: Phelps, A. 2011. Archaeological Watching Brief at St Peter and St Paul's Church, East Harling, Norfolk. NAU Archaeology. 2340.