St Agnes, Cawston
St Agnes, Cawston
St Agnes is a Grade I parish church on Church Lane, Cawston, Norfolk, in the Diocese of Norwich. It is known for its fifteenth-century hammerbeam angel roof and painted rood screen.
- Location
- Cawston, Norfolk
- Country
- England
- County
- Norfolk
- City / town
- Cawston
- Address
- Church Lane, Cawston, Norfolk, NR10 4AG
- Postcode
- NR10 4AG
- Built
- Mainly C15; early C15 tower
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Agnes
- Diocese
- Norwich
- Parish
- Cawston St Agnes
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Perpendicular Gothic
- Materials
- Ashlar, flint with stone dressings, and render; lead and slate roofs
- Grid reference
- TG 134 238
- Opening hours
- Daily from 9am to dusk or 6pm, whichever earlier.
- Access
- Non-accessible toilets in church. Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby
- Website
- http://www.st-agnes.org.uk/
Overview
Historic England records a mainly fifteenth-century parish church of ashlar, flint with stone dressings, and render, under lead and slate roofs. The plan is a four-stage early-fifteenth-century tower, two-storey south porch, north and south aisles, nave with clerestory, north transept, north chancel chapel, chancel and vestry. The west door has canopied niches, a Wild Man and dragon in the spandrels, and the arms of Wingfield and De la Pole in a frieze above. Wikipedia states that the church was built at the request of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, lord of the manor, and has been listed Grade I since 1961.
The interior has a six-bay arcade of octagonal piers and a fine single hammerbeam roof with carved angels standing on the hammerbeams, retaining evidence of original paint. Hammerbeams alternate with arch braces; a carved frieze over the clerestory is decorated with angels bearing shields or instruments. The tall screen has twenty painted saints on the dado. Other fittings include a Perpendicular hexagonal pulpit, an octagonal font, a medieval poor box, and a double piscina with dropped-sill sedilia replaced by three stalls with fourteenth-century misericords. An early-sixteenth-century timber ringing gallery stands in the tower.