St Margaret, Starston

St Margaret’s is a Grade I parish church on Church Hill, Starston, Norfolk, in the Diocese of Norwich and the benefice of Dickleburgh and the Pulhams.

Overview

Historic England lists mainly fourteenth- and fifteenth-century fabric, heavily restored in the late nineteenth century. The nave has an embattled parapet with flushwork and Perpendicular south windows. The west tower has diagonal buttresses, an embattled flushwork parapet and two-light bell-openings. A Victorian south porch incorporates a fifteenth-century doorway with fleurons on the jambs. The north aisle was built in 1870 in Perpendicular style; the chancel and north vestry are late nineteenth-century. Walls are flint rubble with stone dressings, under lead-clad and slate roofs.

Inside, a nineteenth-century three-bay north arcade supports a fifteenth-century arch-braced nave roof with a moulded and crenellated wall-plate. The fifteenth-century font has an octagonal bowl with alternating shields and roses and four lions against the stem. Monuments include a 1613 tablet with kneeling effigy to Bartholomew Cotton and a 1767 tablet to Robert Ferrier. Parish notes date the church from about 1300, with earlier evidence, and place the tower and chancel in the fifteenth-century Perpendicular style. The village appears in Domesday Book. The church is open daily during daylight hours.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1050064
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St Margaret, Starston