A brief history of St Mary's church

The  church has Saxon foundations and is built in Norman and Early English styles. The present building is only part of the original construction. The large square Norman tower, now at the east end was once at the centre of a much larger building which had a fine chancel and choir extending to the east, while the North and South transepts formed the shape of a cross. The whole of this eastern end belonged to the College of the Holy Cross, founded in the late fourteenth century by Sir Robert Mortimer, who enlarged the nave for the Parish.

The Tower originally had a spire and , although it is said that the old chancel was demolished after the closure of the Monasteries, it is believed by some that it was destroyed when the spire fell down some 300 years ago.

A mediaeval record suggests that the young St Edmund - King of the East Angles - spent a year at the college studying the Psalter with the priests in Attleborough before his coronation in Suffolk in AD 856.

Inside the church there are many interesting features, including the amazing Rood Screen for which St Mary's is famous. It has been described as 'one of the most precious possessions of our English Churches'. Dated around c1500 the 52 foot long oak screen is the only one in Norfolk to stretch across the nave and both side aisles. It has a richly carved rood loft along the front painted with the shields of the 24 English Bishoprics of the day. The screen was moved to the back of the church in the 1840s, where it remained until 1931, when it was restored to its rightful place.

Other interesting features include the stained glass windows, the stone font with its comical faces, a 16th century chest with three locks and a richly carved pulpit attributed to the workshop of Grinling Gibbons.

Near the aisle altar is a marble floorstone commemorating Captain John Gibbs who notoriously drove his carriage and four horses up and down the deepest part of the Devil's Ditch on Newmarket Heath for a £500 wager in the time of Charles ll.

These and other features are described in more detail in the Church Guide, available at £1.