St Michael’s & All Angels Church, Plumstead

There has been a place of worship on this site for at least 900 years: this is one of twenty-eight in Norfolk dedicated to the archangel Michael.

Today this peaceful little church is entered through its south door. Much of the interior fittings and fabric date from Victorian times, when a comprehensive restoration took place, but the oldest surviving work is Norman.

St Michael’s is approached through a wrought iron arch, installed in 1993. It carries a lamp subscribed for by the parish to mark the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth 11 in 1953. The path to the church door was the gift of Thomas Wormald in memory of his mother.

The diagram below shows what the building would have looked like over the years.

The tower, dating from the 15th century, has steps to the belfry and roof of the church. On the left is a chimney over what used to be a recess for a f ire. It is now used as a cupboard. An early sketch of the church shows an external door to the tower which suggests that there was access through what became a fireplace. The alignment of the flints on the outside wall confirms that, indeed, a doorway has been filled in.

St Michael’s has a fine tenor bell, cast in the foundry of Richard Brazier in St Stephen’s, Norwich between1450 and 1500. By the north door is an illustration of the trademarks on the bell and its inscription, Celesti Manna Tua Proles Nos Cibet Anna, a prayer to St Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin, to give food from heaven.

At the west end of the nave stands a 14th century octagonal stone font. Its cover is relatively modern and part of the restoration work that transformed the interior of this church in 1873.

Nearby are Plumstead’s war memorials. An unassuming table below them is a Stuart period Holy Table which in 1920 was replaced with the present altar, one of many items installed in the memory of the then-rector’s son Captain Carrol Whiteside, who died on the Somme in the Great War. His framed picture is still to be seen here together with those of two of the village’s other fallen sons. Rev Joseph Whiteside also gave the church the reredos (panelling behind the altar), two large, carved candlesticks and a litany desk, all in his son’s memory. The altar has recently had gilding reapplied, by virtue of a generous donation from John and Mary Lintott, to draw attention back to the lovely carvings on its front.

The north doorway, which was an original entrance to the church, now opens into the 19th century porch, now used as the vestry. Above this door are the Royal Arms. These were often displayed in churches after the Reformation, reminding parishioners that the supreme head of the English Church was now the monarch, not the Pope. Many of them were taken down and destroyed in the Civil War and Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, but then flourished again from the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 up to Queen Victoria.

Plumstead’s was painted relatively recently as a memorial to King George V1 by former churchwarden, John Simson Coltart. Royal Arms as recent as this are rare.

The list of rectors dates back to Thomas de Col[d]yngham, 1320. The benefice was in the gift of Merton Priory in Surrey until the Reformation, when it was appropriated by the King as Duke of Lancaster. At the head of the board are the arms of the Duchy.

On the North wall hang two colourful paintings of dragonslayers, St George and St Michael, painted and donated by former churchwarden, John F Durdin. They are based on panels in the celebrated 15th century rood screen at St Helen’s Church, Ranworth, the ‘Cathedral of the Broads’.

Further along is an ornate stone memorial to Theophila Flemming, notable for its inscription ‘6 Jan’ry 1742/3’. From the 12th century to 1752 the civil or legal year in England began on March 25th, known as Lady Day. So, dates earlier in the year might be recorded as belonging to either the old or the ‘new’ year, or indeed both! Set in the floor of the nave close by is a ledger stone to her parents (1720) which features a memento mori skull motif and tiny fossil seashells within the stone.

Also on the floor below a pew is a poignant slab recording the deaths of four children in one family, three of them within a single week in January 1743.

Buried in the chancel is Revd Benjamin Suckling, rector of Plumstead and Matlaske for 44 years from 1793 to 1837. He was cousin to one of Norfolk’s most famous sons, Admiral Horatio Nelson. His father, William, and Lord Nelson’s mother, Catherine, were children of another Revd Suckling, Maurice, rector of Barsham and Woodton near Beccles and prebendary of Westminster, and were great nephew and niece of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Our Revd Suckling appears in that important rare record of everyday rural life of the eighteenth century, Woodforde’s Diary of a Country Parson.

The roofs were all renewed when St Michael’s was completely restored under Revd A J Richards in 1873. The print by noted Norwich artist Robert Ladbrooke’s lithograph of the exterior (near the north door), shows that the original roofline was lower and rather less steep, with a small variation in height between chance and nave which no longer exists; the division between these is now only marked inside by a different construction in the roof. Whilst the nave has a simple scissor-trussed rafter roof, the chancel staggers its span using short hammer beams that jut straight out from the walls, with decorative open tracery above them, a distinctly English form. On the corbels (15th and 19th centuries) supporting the
first pair of beams are carved stone figures of the archangels St Michael (shown impaling a dragon with a sword) and St Gabriel. Each of the eight beam ends bears a different carved wooden angel; there is a ninth one lower down with only one wing intact, in place of a stone corbel where the arch above the organ intrudes.

More recently the roofs required extensive repair, the southern side in 1992 and the northern side in 2001.

The chancel, the most eastern part of the church, is younger than the north side of the nave, but older than most of the south side. It was added to the original building in the 13th century and is the same width as the nave, a sign of an early church.

To either side of the east window are the two commandment boards and a painting by Edwin Sherwood Calvert (1844 – 98). Under this is a recess beneath a carved stone with fragmentary vaulting, found during the repairs of 1873. This is 13th century work and believed to be an Easter Sepulchre, where the Reserved Sacrament was placed from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.

The coats of arms on either side are replicas of those formerly in the church: Plumstede and Plumstede impaling Gawsell. In 1309 the family of Plumstede was ‘enfeoffed’ (invested) of the Lordship under Earl Warren, to whom it had been granted by William the Conqueror. The title remained in the family until 1639, when John Plumstede of Plumstede Hall died Lord of the combined manors of Plumstead and Lose Hall in this parish.

Set into the wall opposite is more 13th century work, a trefoil headed piscina, a basin for the rinsing of communion vessels. Next to it the sill of the window is ‘dropped’ to form a low seat, a sedilia.

The pulpit, pews, choir stalls, lectern and west screen were all installed c. 1873 when the major restoration of the church building was carried out. The organ was presented in 1875 and at first installed in the tower, before being moved to its new organ chamber in 1898. The altar rails are to a design from Sens cathedral in Burgundy and were presented by J S Coltart in 1962. The brass chandeliers, ‘coronae lucis’ were repaired and rehung in John Durdin’s time having been stored away for 40 years following the installation of electricity.

The large east window was inserted in 1873; Ladbrooke’s 1820s illustration shows there were previously two windows of Early English form. The present panels were once in St Margaret’s Church, Old Catton, Norwich, then more lately at Catton Hall, then given to St Michael’s by Plumstead churchwarden John S Coltart in 1950. They were made in Norwich in the 15th century, or maybe earlier – the ‘castle’ atop the central panel of a tonsured monk suggests it may originate in the 14th century.

Saints in art are recognised by the emblem they carry or have attached to them. Yet the two main side figures here have backgrounds made up from kaleidoscopic fragments of glass. Look closely and you can see that the one on the right is not holding ‘his’ flaying knife for removing skin, by which he was long thought to be St Bartholemew (the apostle who was flayed alive and hence chosen as the patron saint of leather tanners). Instead, it is now thought that because of his Dominican habit this figure is St Peter Martyr, a 13th century Veronese friar. The figure on the left is also in Dominican dress and may represent the originator of the glass. The gem of this collection however, the lower central panel, is complete and represents St Agnes; she has a lamb beside her and there is a sword in her breast. Agnes was a young Roman in the 3rd century who was slain by a sword when flames would not destroy her. The lamb (agnus in Latin) is a pun on her name. There is an Agnus Dei – Lamb of God – image in the quatrefoil at the apex of this window. Below her and the upper central monk are two heads, maybe representations of the original donors of the glass. The curved shape of these pieces indicates that they were originally in shaped windows and the heads were probably ‘f ill ins’ to square up the base.

The south chancel windows contain unusual, richly coloured panels of 17th century Dutch glass, featuring a floating, arms-crossed angel and a fair-haired man stepping into a rural landscape. (These also came from Catton Hall, where they were mixed with those now in the east window.)

On the south wall of the nave can be seen the traces of three arches which were built in the 15th century to form a south aisle. The aisle fell to ruin 200 years later and was demolished.

The recesses above would have been the windows of the clerestory. The two windows now under two of the arches date from the 1873 restoration. Each contains a small 16th or 17th century continental roundel, in which can be made out scenes of St Michael, identifiable by his archangel’s wings, slaying devil-faced dragon creatures.

A more extensive guide to the medieval stained glass in St Michael’s, by Ray Jones of the Old Catton Society, can be found at the back of the church.

Much of the 15th century tower is beautifully faced with white knapped flint flushwork. At the foot of the stepped buttresses are carved trefoils, little. Above, the parapet is decorated with crocketed pinnacles, and gargoyles represent the four evangelists. They channel water from the roof, symbolising their gospels channelling the Holy Word. Circling the tower from the southeast corner are winged symbols of the evangelists, an ox – for St Luke, a lion – St Mark, a man – St Matthew, and an eagle – St John.

Attached to the North face of the building is a Victorian porch, but to its left it can be seen how the church was first constructed. The stones are laid in horizontal courses and herringboned lower down near the porch. This work is Norman, dating from the early 1100s, but does not continue to the upper part of the wall. The original church was most probably a small,
low building.

The eastern parapet of the church was rebuilt in 1992. This part of the exterior of the church used to have a cement cladding which was removed then. Its attractive flintwork can now be appreciated again. All the walls are built of local flintstone gathered from the f ields, but you can also see
ginger-hued blocks of carstone, an iron oxide rich sandstone typical of the Lower Cretaceous geology of West Norfolk. It must have been transported to this site, possibly from derelict buildings nearby.

More Norman work is to be found on the South side, where you can see areas of herringbone construction. The large stone quoins to be found to the left of the door suggest that the part which has disappeared might even have been Saxon. Low down beside the door is a scratch dial, which was probably moved to this point when the original porch was demolished. This is effectively a vertical sundial and would have been used to help determine the hours for prayer and services in medieval times. A gnomon, a metal peg, would have been placed in the middle to cast a shadow. The foundations of the old south aisle can be seen, and almost all the wall behind them has clearly been rebuilt, where archways and clerestory once opened into the south aisle.

Plumstead has no rectory house of its own; down the centuries it has been overseen by priests living in one or other of the nearby parishes. From 1750 to 1941 the Benefice was held in union with Matlaske. It was then joined instead to Baconsthorpe, with Hempstead added later. Subsequently all four parishes became one benefice including Barningham Winter, and North Barningham which is a redundant church. In 2015 the benefice doubled in size, merging with Edgefield, Itteringham, Little Barningham, Saxthorpe with Corpusty, and Wickmere with Wolterton.
At the time of writing (November 2025) the Benefice now covers eight parishes, Plumstead, Baconsthorpe, Barningham Winter, Edgefield, Hempstead, Matlaske, Bessingham and Saxthorpe with Corpusty.