The Church of St Michael and All Angels,

Aylsham Aylsham ( or ) is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Bure in north Norfolk, England, nearly north of Norwich. The river rises near Melton Constable, upstream from Aylsham and continues to Great Yarmouth and the North Sea, ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

is a church of

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

origins that was built in the 14th century under the patronage of John of Gaunt, lord of the manor of Aylsham. The church remains an active parish church and is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

gives a construction date for the church of the 14th century, with further work in the fifteenth and a major Victorian restoration in 1852.

Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist * Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo * David Pevsner, American actor, singer, da ...

suggests that the interior contains the oldest built elements, dating the arcades to the late 13th century. The "lavish two-storeyed porch" was constructed by Richard Howard,

Sheriff of Norwich This is a list of the present unpaid ceremonial offices of High Sheriffs in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, along with the more localised but equivalent Sheriffdoms of 16 towns/cities. Historically a High Sheriff was appointed to each ...

, and dates from 1488. The tower is of the 14th century, a rare example of its type surviving from the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, the Rev. Edmund Yates undertook a "drastic(….)" restoration, particularly of the interior. The traditional box pews were replaced with seating for over 700 and the galleries were removed. The

landscape gardener Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

Humphry Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...

is buried in the churchyard and is commemorated with a memorial located outside of the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

door. Pevsner notes that the construction date of the monument "must be considerably later than that of Repton's death". Repton, born in the neighbouring county of Suffolk in 1752, had purchased a small county estate at Sustead, near Aylsham in 1778 and many of his earliest commissions were from local Norfolk landowners. The tower holds ten bells with the tenor bell weighing 17 long hundredweight, 1 quarter and 6 pounds and is tuned to E flat. The tenor bell is the largest cast by Samuel Gilpin, in 1700, and it has a protection order. The bells are rung on Tuesday evenings for practice and on Sunday mornings as well as to mark national and civic events. The tower captain is Michael Cocker. The churchyard also contains a "very rare"

mortsafe A mortsafe or mortcage was a construction designed to protect graves from disturbance and used in the United Kingdom. Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom, Resurrectionists and Night Doctors had supplied schools of anatomy since the early 18th c ...

, an iron grille placed over a grave to prevent

body snatching Body snatching is the illicit removal of corpses from graves, morgues, and other burial sites. Body snatching is distinct from the act of grave robbery as grave robbing does not explicitly involve the removal of the corpse, but rather theft from ...

. St Michael's remains an active parish church in the Aylsham and District ministry and regular services are held. Reorganisation of the interior of the church in the later 20th century has enabled the holding of concerts, exhibitions and a produce market. The church also hosts a local choir. The Aylsham Heritage Centre, a museum of local history, is located in the former church hall in the grounds.

Architecture and description

The writer A. C. Benson, author of the words to "

Land of Hope and Glory "Land of Hope and Glory" is a British patriotic song, with music by Edward Elgar written in 1901 and lyrics by A. C. Benson later added in 1902. Composition The music to which the words of the refrain 'Land of Hope and Glory, &c' below ar ...

", described St Michael's during a visit in 1902; "(it) is long and low, a large grey flint building, low-pitched roof-transepts and aisles, with a very fine tower". The construction is of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

, sometimes

knapped Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing w ...

, with

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

infilling. The church is a

Footnotes

References

Sources

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External links

{{commons category, St Michael's and All Angels Church, Aylsham Church of England church buildings in Norfolk Grade I listed churches in Norfolk