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St Mary - The Nave
The nave is short and unaisled, with windows in the perpendicular style, the great English style dominant in the late 1300s and all through the 1400s, These windows are now in a sad state of repair.
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One of the nave windows, though attractive, it is in a sad state of repair. |
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| Below are the floor tiles, trying hard to make themselves seen through several decades of bird droppings. | On each side of the nave aisle are what appear to be raised platforms. These are wooden floors above the heating system and boiler, presumably also installed in 1869. As you can see from the 1930 photograph, the seats were conveniently place on these floors which were heated from below. |
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This ledger stone lies at the end of the nave aisle, just before the chancel arch. The memorial reads: Sacred to the memory of Mrs Mary Dix who departed this live May the 18th 1808 in the Ninety First year of her Age. In her will dated 17 October 1804 she names herself as Mary Dix of Forncett St Mary in the County of Norfolk, Spinster and she mentions legacies to her sister, Sarah Dix, and to Maria Barret daughter of her late sister Prisca Gay and to Mary Gay the daughter of John Gay of Rainthorpe Hall in Norfolk. After the payment of those legacies, the residue to go Charlotte Smyth the wife of George Smyth of Mellis in Suffolk, being her freehold and copyhold property in Forncett St Mary or elsewhere, the copyhold part wherof she had surrendered to the use of her will. The will was witnessed by William Cookson, Dorothy Cookson and William Braidforth and proved on the 17th September 1808 at Stuston.  |
St Mary - The Chancel
The chancel, which Pevsner* tells us was built in 1869 when the church was restored,has windows in the decorated style, ornamental corbels at the bases of the arch between it and the nave, and a very beautiful ceiling, presumably also made at that date, apparently still in very good condition. Pevsner also mentions a seventeenth century pulpit. and a communion rail. As you can see from the photographs, these presumably fell prey to one of the several robbers who have invaded and despoiled this church since it became redundant.
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| One of the corbels supporting the chancel arch. | One of the chancel windows | And the other corbel. |
*Buildings of England: Norfolk 2: North-West and South, by Nikolaus Pevsner and Bill Wilson, Yale University Press, 1999
St Mary - what remains of the organ
| All that the thieves have left us of the organ, presumably also of 1869 date, can be seen in this photograph: on the left hand wall of the chancel. |  |
St Mary Then and Now
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| Graham Prior has provided this picture of the interior of St Mary before it fell on hard times, believed to have been taken in the 1930s. | This is a recent photograph (March 2009)taken from a similar viewpoint. |
Entering St Mary's Church
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The church is entered through a door with linenfold panelling of the 1500s (according to Pevsner), via tthe North Porch, until recently roofless but now with a temporary (but very stout) wooden roof (see below). |  |
