|
|
St
Nicholas, Dereham
 |
 |
|
Dereham is the Heart
of Norfolk. I know this, because it tells
you so on the signs as you enter the town. Until
about twenty years ago, Dereham was East Dereham,
just a little market town in the Breckland, but
it has undegone a massive expansion and redefined
itself with lavish amounts of civic pride, and
why not? In terms of population, Dereham is now
the sixth largest place in Norfolk, but the first
five - Norwich, Yarmouth, Lynn, Thetford and
Gorleston - are all urban sprawls, and so Dereham
is quite justified in thinking of itself as the
largest small town in the county, remote and
important and almost as close to the exact centre
of Norfolk as it is possible to be. |
Pevsner
was critical of Dereham's expansion in the 1970s and
1980s, considering that the interior of almost every town
centre building had been altered to the bad as a result.
But the narrow roads themselves survive, and there are
some fine frontages. And, above all, the town centre
streets are a perfect foil for this magnificent church.
Almost without exception, the great urban churches of
East Anglia are found outside the biggest towns and
cities. In terms of parish churches, Norwich, Ipswich and
Cambridge have nothing to compare with the glories of
Wymondham, Bury St Edmunds, Kings Lynn, Wisbech or
Southwold. Or here, at Dereham, for St Nicholas is one of
the great English medieval churches, and not as well
known as it would be if it was in a different county.
At first
sight, it appears that there are two churches close
together. This is because, on the first approach, you are
presented with the massive detached bell tower first.
Beyond it, the church itself also has a tower, a central
tower at the crossing of a huge cruciform church. The two
towers are similar in that they both lack elaboration at
the top - there are no battlements or pinnacles. This
gives them both a fortress-like feeling.
The bell
tower dates from the early years of the sixteenth
century. The tower must be fully 150 years earlier - and
possibly earlier than that, for although it presents
itself with Decorated features it may be a rebuilding of
a Norman tower, perhaps after the original fell. This
would explain why the crossing appears to have been moved
slightly to the west at some point - perhaps an earlier
tower had fallen and damaged the arcades.
That the
central tower now appears as stark as the bell tower may
be a result of a reconstruction of the very top after the
bell tower was started. But this starkness does not
extend to the rest of the building, because the exterior
of the church is delicious with details, and is perhaps
at its best on the gorgeous early 16th century porch,
replete with carvings and niches, demi-angels and an
Annunciation, easily as good as anything in Suffolk.
As with any big church, you step inside to a
feeling of space - but St Nicholas is more complex than
that. Because of the division of the transepts into
chapels and the narrowness of the chancel arch, it feels
as if you are walking through a series of rooms, new
vistas opening up to you as you change direction. This
means that the building is not as easily graspable as,
say, Wymondham Abbey or Kings Lynn St Nicholas, where the
churches are similarly big, but are open like halls. Tom
and I spent forty minutes or so here, but I still feel
that I don't really have a proper understanding of the
building, and I must go back.
It is a truism to say that most Norfolk
small town churches are extremist - either militantly
Anglo-Catholic or thorough-going Evangelical. St Nicholas
is in the first of these two camps, and on this Wednesday
in Holy Week we arrived to find a service in progress,
the only evidence of the Holy Week liturgy we would see
in an Anglican church all day. However, the church is so
big and so divided up that it is quite acceptable for
visitors to wander around while there is a service on
without disturbing it, which is just as it should be, I
think.
The star of the show at Dereham is
undoubtedly the seven sacrament font. It is Norfolk's
best in my opinion, and second in England only to the one
at Westhall in Suffolk. Its date and cost are documented;
it was installed in 1468 as a result of a bequest for
£12 14s. 9d. It appears small and elegant, an illusion
from the vastness of the space around perhaps, and is in
excellent condition. The stem has eight Saints on it,
including St Bartholomew and St Dorothy.
The panels show, working anti-clockwise from
the east, Mass, the Priest facing dramtically over a
small altar, his acolytes around him; Confession (NE),
the Priest seated, the confessee watched over by angels,
another candidate waiting at a shriving bench beyond;
Confirmation (N), a relatively simple arrangement where a
Priest confirms and an acolyte on the right holds the
holy oils in a chrismatory; Baptism (NW), a
satisfactorily busy gathering around a font, the baby
about to be totally immersed; Crucifixion (W), the extra
panel, the grief of Mary being captured particularly
well; Last Rites (SW), the dying man's ribs showing as he
lies partly covered in an angled bed, his wife kneeling
at the head; Matrimony (S), the Priest reading from a
Missal, and Holy Orders (SE), with a Bishop ordaining
kneeling candidates.

As I said
before, this is a church which unfolds as you walk around
it, and to stand in different places is to see it in a
new way. From the west, your eye is drawn to the light
filled crossing with the modern nave altar beneath it.
Standing there and looking back, the font is grail-like
in the vastness of the west end. But it is at the
crossing that the complexities of this building begin to
reveal themselves, and you can do no better than to start
by looking up.
The
vast square space above is filled with white
light, and enclosed by the happy juxtaposition of
stone arches and bare white walls. So many big
churches style themselves 'the Cathedral' of
this, that and the other, but here it really does
feel as if we might be in a small cathedral
somewhere. And then, around, the rich complexity
of a mature liturgical space, redolent with the
imagery and purpose of its Catholic past and
protestant present. On the one hand, in the south
transept, a pretty little chapel, simple and
prayerful, partitioned off by the late 15th
century screen which survived the collapse of the
tower at Oxborough. In 1949 it was excavated from
the rubble and installed here, and even the
curiosity of its alignment does not detract from
its pleasing symmetry. |
|
 |
There are
just six painted panels, of which four are clearly
diescernible and a fifth identifiable from a fragment.
They show St Thomas of Canterbury, St John the
Evangelist, St John the Baptist, St Withburga and the
perfume pot of St Mary of Magdala.
Facing
east, the chancel furnishings are a solid example of
early 20th century Anglo-catholic enthusiasm. Across the
crossing is the memorial to the poet William Cowper.
Cowper's work is little known today, his name registering
on the English Literature radar rather more prominently
than any quotations of his. He was an angst-ridden manic
depressive, who sought the company of gentle people and
gentle animals - he kept pet hares, and would not answer
the door in the evenings when his animals were given free
range of the house. His longer verse epics are tedious,
but he had a magical touch on a small scale, the master
of a well-turned line. His was a distinctly English
voice, a militant protestant who was an influence on the
militantly Catholic Manley Hopkins and the militantly
agnostic Larkin. His good simple verse is also owed a
debt by the likes of Hardy and Auden, and his letters and
diaries are a sheer joy to read. His 1802 memorial by
John Flaxman consists of an austere tablet topped by a
palm branch, the bible and a copy of one of those verse
epics, The Task. The window above, by Heaton
Butler and Bayne in 1900, is much better, not least
because it features his beloved hares.
Another
militant protestant remembered at Dereham is George
Borrow, whose plan to secretly sell bibles to illiterate
peasants in Spain was foiled by the joy in his heart at a
beautiful valley or turned heel of a peasant girl.
Dereham was his home town, St Nicholas the venerable
church of this pretty, quiet town.
Perhaps
the most famous person associated with Dereham is
St Withburga herself, a shadowy figure claimed as
the sister of St Etheldreda, who supposedly fled
to Dereham after the death of her father King
Anna at the battle of Blythburgh. The monks of
Ely supposedly stole her body and dragged it off
to Ely. As a son of Ely myself, I feel a bit
defensive on their behalf when I hear this story,
especially as a claim is also made for St
Withburga by the church at West Dereham, some
twelve miles off. Whatever, the Reformation would
have seen the destruction of her relics anyway.
There is a sunken spring in the churchyard known
as St Withburga's well, the structure a 19th
century restoration of what may have been a 14th
century grotto, itself almost half a Millennium
after the battle of Blythburgh. But Norfolk
people have long memories. |
|
 |
Simon Knott, June 2006
|
|
|