THE Parish Church of St Nicholas in North Walsham is perhaps more well-known for the part of it which isn’t standing, rather than any part of the rather splendid church that exists today in its stern semi-entirety.
Its tower was once a very prominent local landmark that, topped with a steeple, reached a height of 180 feet. Which is, whichever way you look at it (and that’s usually upwards) a laudable achievement. For those of you familiar with Norfolk’s wide array of churches, scattered all over the county like so many green Monopoly houses dropped from on high, the much celebrated steeple at St Mary’s in Snettisham stands at a ‘mere’ 172 feet. high.
St Mary’s Church in Snettisham (Evelyn Simak/geograph)
One, maybe apocryphal story, tells of how the good folk of North Walsham, incensed at the completion of the 160 feet high tower at nearby Cromer’s Parish Church vowed, for once, to steal a little of that town's thunder by declaring that, “…Our church is bigger than your church” - and setting out to prove exactly that.
St Peter & St Paul’s Church, Cromer (Chris Morgan/geograph)
St Peter & St Paul’s Church in Cromer is impressive. It’s one of a number of Norfolk churches that, for me, wouldn’t look out of place in one of the great European cities. Cologne maybe, Paris. Even Florence. The good folk of Cromer certainly weren’t messing about by cutting any corners when it was built. The tower’s 160 feet includes four separate stages (making it a little like the mighty Saturn V rocket which took the Apollo astronauts to the moon), a gathering of assorted pinnacles and ornate battlements, tall two-light bell-openings on each of its sides, some set back buttresses and a five-light west window.
It was certainly grand enough to attract the attention of Pevsner, never a man to get too excited about anything who, upon first beholding the tower was moved enough to say, “…externally, a very impressive church”.
A comment that would have given the Vicar’s wife a touch of the vapours. It was akin to Marco Pierre White taking a bite of your freshly made omlette and saying it was “OK”.
Needless to say, the parishioners of North Walsham looked upon the completed structure and felt just a little miffed. Cromer was always looking to have the best of everything-and to freely boast about it. They still do this today, claiming that Cromer caught crabs are the best in England-not that I am going to argue with them about that. But, back then, it was a case of one-upmanship that had, as far as North Walsham was concerned, gone a tad too far.
Thus, once their tower had topped its rival at Cromer by that all important twenty feet, they celebrated by ringing its bells. But not just for half an hour or so, or even an hour. On and on and on they toiled, producing a crashing and constant cacophony of campanology that would have been audible all over the surrounding countryside with word, they were sure, soon to get back to Cromer telling of their towers superiority.
St Nicholas Church in North Walsham (Paul King)
This was, as it turned out, an act of some folly. The tower collapsed early in the morning after the bells had been rung for most of the day in order to, unofficially, mark Ascension Sunday (but, unofficially, to have a pop at the people of Cromer). So, God fearing or not, the resultant noise and vibration of that days excesses did more to irrevocably harm the structure that the bells resided in, than remind everyone in the town what day it was.
The lasting damage done on that day in 1715 was exercerbated in 1836 when the north side of the existing ruin, untouched and pretty much uncared for since the original event, collapsed during some heavy gales. Other than, it seems, the town’s dignity, no-one was hurt. But, with that late grand finale to their original folly, the chances of North Walsham ever having a church to compete, height wise, with Cromer and Snettisham had gone forever.
But that isn’t the end of the story which does go onto have something of a happy ending.
The current day building, despite all of its structural failings, remains one of the largest parish churches in the county and demands a visit - but not only for the opportunity to gaze upon the ruins of that most ambitious of towers but also to see several unusual features within the church itself, including an extremely ornate marble sarcophagus of Sir William Paston.
Paston, named after the Norfolk village where he was born (which lies around four miles north east of North Walsham) worked as a lawyer, investing, as he did, in several properties and accumulating no little wealth in the process.
He is regarded as the founder of the Paston family’s fortunes which include the collection of letters, documents and state papers exchanged between members of that family from 1422 to 1509, and collectively known as the Paston Letters.
Documents that really do merit celebration, even if it is of the somewhat quieter kind.