It was a bit of a grim old morning when we arrived at Garboldisham. You can't expect a lot in late October, I know, but the sky had been clear when I'd left Ipswich and the forecast for Norfolk was for more of the same. But here there was a thin grey drizzle, and so we sought sanctuary inside, deciding to explore the outside later. There is a great mystery to it, but I will have to keep you in suspense a while longer.

As you see from the fancy tracery in the east window, the Victorians did a lot of work here, and apparently had a really good time. The effect is as striking from the inside as much as the outside, with vast acreages of 19th century glass, some of it very good, and that highly polished confidence that comes from a generation that took going to church seriously. They knew they were right.

But St John the Baptist is not without its medieval survivals, one of which is worth a visit alone. This is the base of the screen in the north aisle. Legend has it that it came from the abandoned neighbouring church of Garboldisham All Saints, the original St John the Baptist screen base being reset across the church in the south aisle after WWII, when it was found built into the structure of the rectory pigsty. All of this may well be true, of course, although it doesn't quite sound right - where was the All Saints screen in the time between the ruination of the church and its placing here by the Victorians?

Whatever, it features four panels, all of interest. They are St Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople and a minor Doctor of the Church, St WIlliam of York, St Mary of Magdala and a pleasingly simple St Agnes. It probably dates from the end of the 15th century.

Both Pevsner and Mortlock miss the 1579 brass to John Carlton, which is surprising because it has an associated merchant mark, a rarity. There's also a good set of Queen Anne arms.

That mystery outside, then. If you stand to the west of the tower you can see that there was once a western porch. These so-called galilee porches, named for their role in the Holy Week processions, are unusual in East Anglia. Pevsner points us towards the one over the Suffolk border in Lakenheath - in fact, this is quite wrong; the structure there was never a porch, but a lean-to buiding, and it was built after the Reformation. There is one at the other end of Suffolk on the round tower at Mutford, and a very grand one at Bottisham in Cambridgeshire, which you can see on the Cambridgeshire Churches site. But whatever was here has now gone.

Come round to the north side. Here there is a very grand porch, with flanking niches and invocatory inscriptions all about it; and yet, there is something not quite right. Simply, it doesn't seem to fit. The arch is the wrong shape for the spandrels, as if it has been narrowed, and there is a messiness about the way it fits to the side of the church. It would appear that at some point the western porch was moved around to this side. And there is more; the inscription above asks us to pray for the soul of William Pece - but this inscription is obviously recut, with no evidence I can see that it replicates exactly what was there before. Indeed, it appears incomplete. I wonder to what extent it is a Victorian confection.

In 1787, James Taylor sought himself a more furtive immortality, carving his name into a shield on the south face of the tower. You can still see it today. And despite the best efforts of those Victorians, the tower still speaks to us more of the 15th century than of their enthusiasms. It's beautiful.

Simon Knott, December 2004