Church

St Leonard, Billingford

St Leonard, Billingford

St Leonard’s is the Grade I parish church of Billingford near Scole, Norfolk, a late-medieval Waveney Valley church with a truncated west tower, in the Diocese of Norwich.

Location
Billingford, Norfolk
Country
England
County
Norfolk
City / town
Billingford
Address
Norgate Lane, Billingford, Norfolk, IP21 4HN
Postcode
IP21 4HN
Built
Mainly late C14 and C15
Denomination
Church of England
Dedication
Leonard
Diocese
Norwich
Parish
Billingford St Leonard
Grade
I
Style
Decorated and Perpendicular
Materials
Flint rubble, partly rendered, with stone dressings; tiled roofs
Grid reference
TM 168 791
Opening hours
We aim to have the church open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 10am to 4pm from May to September. The church is locked during the Winter Months, but key holder's names and numbers are on the noticeboard in the porch.
Access
Accessible toilets in church. Ramp or level access available on request

Overview

Historic England describes the church as mainly late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century, with Decorated and Perpendicular nave and chancel windows, a south porch, and a truncated west tower with diagonal buttresses, pyramidal tiled roof and polygonal stair turret. Walls are flint rubble, partly rendered, with stone dressings and tiled roofs. The church was listed Grade I on 7 December 1959 (list entry 1050112).

Interior fittings listed include an early fifteenth-century screen, a seventeenth-century octagonal pulpit with tester, fifteenth-century bench ends with poppy-heads, and a fifteenth-century octagonal font with angels holding shields on the bowl and lions on the stem. Wall paintings, probably early fourteenth-century, survive high on the south wall, with fragments of old glass in the chancel.

The legal parish is Billingford St Leonard. This is the Billingford on Norgate Lane (IP21), not the village of the same name near Dereham.

Further Information