West Tofts church is one of the four churches of the Norfolk Battle Training Area and can't generally be accessed by the public, but if that ever changed it would receive plenty of visitors. This extraordinary building would be the focus of pilgrimages by church crawlers, Pugin fans and casual visitors who just wanted to gawp in amazement. In the second half of the 19th Century, a typical rural medieval church was turned into a Gothic fantasy by Augustus Welby Pugin at the expense of the Sutton family of Lynford Hall. They presented to the living, and Augustus Sutton was at once rector and resident millionaire. From the outside, the massing of spaces appears complex, because the chancel and north aisle are so much bigger and taller than the nave. As Pevsner observed, they were built on a remarkably ambitious scale. In addition, a half-timbered extension on the north side of the chancel lends an air of fantasy. The sanctus bell turret at the west end of the nave creates the illusion of two separate churches close together.

The churchyard is set back from the track that was once the village street, but the avenue of lime trees still leads up to it just as it did a century ago. Today, when St Mary is used for its annual carol service, the avenue is lit up so that former parishioners and other visitors can walk to it as it once was. There is also a track that leads up to the church from where the pub yard used to be. The great building appears shoe-horned into its narrow churchyard, which has more headstones in it that the other three training area churches put together. The 14th Century tower was probably built by the same master mason as that at Santon Downham in Suffolk, about seven miles away; the inscription of donors' names at the base is almost identical, although the central part appears to have been replaced. Was there a west door here in the years after the Reformation that Pugin did away with?

The original nave remains, but the chancel was replaced by a new construction which dwarfs it. A transept forms a memorial chapel to Jane Mary Sutton, and a tomb recess on the outside of the chancel contains her husband Augustus, who paid for it all. Incidentally, a curious thing in passing here. At the time of Pugin's work here, the tiny church at nearby Santon (neighbour to Santon Downham, mentioned above) also had its chancel lavishly rebuilt. The architect has never been satisfactorily identified, but we know that Pugin was staying at the rectory there during the time of the restoration here, so you can't help wondering.

You step into a clean, bright space. After thirty years, the church was returned to use of a kind in the late 1980s. Turning east, you see the roodscreen which formed the centrepiece of the Pugin exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the 1990s. The space is enhanced by the removal of pews and their replacement with simple chairs. It also sets in relief the beautiful parclose screen to the chapel in the north aisle, also Pugin's work. This chapel is designed as if it was a chantry, and contains another tomb in a recess, this time of Jane Mary Sutton. it is as if the Reformation had never happened, which is precisely what Pugin hoped and intended. You step through the wrought iron gate and it is a bit like coming across the Albert Memorial in a junk shop. The walls and roof of the chapel are highly carved and decorated. In the chancel, Pugin decorated the walls with stencilling and set an ornate reredos beneath the east window. Sadly, all the coloured glass beneath the top lights has now gone, but the stencilling is a rare survival, since so much of this kind of thing in the real world was destroyed in the 1950s and 1960s.

A stairway from the vestry leads up inside the half-timbered stairwell to the organ loft, which projects out into the chancel. The organ itself is now at South Pickenham, but you can stand on the balcony for a view of Pugin's rood loft. On the landing floor lies the lonely memorial plaque to one of Sutton's children, to whom the organ was presumably dedicated. Back in the nave are some good 18th Century memorials to the Partridge family of Buckenham Hall, and a series of curious 19th Century paintings, found in storage in the vestry in the 1980s. Some glass has been returned to the building over the last few years, including some supposedly by Sutton himself as at nearby Stanford. It feels as if it wouldn't take much to turn this church into a venue for concerts and other performances. Perhaps that is its future. Outside, an unusual headstone inscription to The Two George Maples, father and son, may catch your eye as you leave.

Simon Knott, May 2004, revised December 2022

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an introduction to the churches of the Norfolk battle training area

LANGFORD STANFORD TOTTINGTON WEST TOFTS