Swainsthorpe Parish Council

Church

Swainsthorpe St. Peter is a round tower church located on high ground in the village centre where it has been the main focal point since the year 900. It is not only the Saxons represented here but Normans, Stuarts and the Victorians, who all carried out alterations to “modernise” the building for their time. The church is of architectural importance and grade 2* listed.

The church consists of a chancel, nave and round tower to the west, with a north aisle and south porch. There are plain tiles on the roofs, with clay ridges, and the walls are constructed of a mixture of random knapped flints interspersed with old bricks and possibly courses of Roman Tiles within the nave walls. All dressings to the buttresses, corners, wall tops, windows and doors are in limestone.

The Round tower design was used from the 11C through to the end of the 14C, and it must have been a sound technique for this church to be still standing after so many centuries. Later it became fashionable to up-date earlier towers by adding an octagonal belfry stage, as happened with St. Peter’s Church in the 14C. However the earliest part of the church is the nave, which has quoins built of flint at its south-west, north-west and north-east corners. These quoins, perhaps originally formed in Saxon times, have been repaired over the years by the insertion of tiles and early brick, and more recently with dressed stone at the top to support the later roof. The round tower was probably added on to the nave, which had already been built, as it has a flat east wall. Within the tower can be seen blocked openings which were built with flint frames, a style used before dressed stone became easily available. One of these narrow openings can also be seen from the outside above the 14C ground floor west window.

There are four bells, one of which is dated 1629. Only one of the four bells is in use today.

The north aisle was added in the 14C, probably at the same time the chancel, which possibly ended with an eastern apse, was extended and given a square end. The doorway on the north wall of the nave has been filled in. The south nave and east windows are now in large 15C perpendicular style, but the others, the south and north chancel and the north nave, are smaller small headed ones, except for the east window of the isle which retains the decorated style from the 14C.

The porch has been reduced in size from the one illustrated by Robert Ladbrooke in the 1820s, which had an upper storey. The church today is entered through the 13C door arch, decorated with fleurons and supported by head steps. On the west jamb of the doorway is a Mass Dial, a form of sun dial used to indicate the time of the service before the porch was built. To the east of the doorway is a benetura, which contained holy water for the people to dip their fingers in and cross themselves as a sign of atonement as they entered the church.

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Churchyard

The churchyard is still used for burials and maintained as a wild flower meadow, with advice from Norfolk Wild Life Trust. It is maintained regularly by volunteer villagers. Many unusual and rare plants have been identified in this ancient site.