St Andrew, South Lopham
This large, imposing church is an excellent and rare example of Romanesque architecture with most of the structure having Norman features, though the site has pre-conquest origins.
The fist thing to see of South Lopham from the surrounding fields is the huge Norman tower, which is though to date from 1120. It appears heavy and much wider than later gothic/early gothic church towers seen around East Anglia giving a much more imposing impression on the landscape. Halfway up the tower we see wide arches with broad capitals with plain moulding. Further up we can see two sets of two-light windows both with single scallop capitals for the arches- this arch moulding is very typical of Romanesque architecture and is a good example of the heavy features that can be seen on Norman churches. Further up the tower is crowned with Perpendicular flushwork-panelled flint battlements, which would have been a much later addition, probably at the same time as the south porch and aisle.
Unusually for churches in East Anglia the Norman tower is placed in the middle between the nave and chancel, potentially (as was common Norman style) there could have been two transepts coming out of the tower to the north and south- which would have made a cruciform church layout. The nave is interesting because three windows with perpendicular style tracery at the top of the north wall, as well as a larger and likely early gothic (12th-14th century) window for the west side of the the nave, where we would typically not have this space lit up with sunlight since there would often be a tower on the west side. But more interestingly is the existence of what is clearly an Anglo-Saxon pre-conquest circular window on the north wall a bit below the three later windows. From this, it has been suggested that the Norman tower was added to an Anglo-Saxon smaller church at some point, which has now been absorbed by later additions all around. Also in the aisle leading to the porch a large chest can be found which is thought to date from c. 950AD - giving evidence to the theory that there was an Anglo-Saxon settlement with a church here.
The chancel to the east of the tower is in the decorated gothic style, as is the southern aisle which is made up of a four-bay arcade with quatrefoiled pillars. In the nave there is also a fairly simple hammerbeam roof, while the chancel as a lower pitch roof with tie beams on arched braces.
Other features include an interesting range of wooden carved animals and figures on the bench ends instead of poppy heads in the central tower near the organ. Also in the tower we find a set of stairs in the south tower wall presumably leading up to where a rood screen once was, marking out the chancel. The space of the tower is flanked by elegant Norman curved arches held up by capitals with plain moulding.
Overall, this is a rather charming church set in the very distinct and surprisingly rare Norman tower- its heavy sculpting and broad rounded arches as well as its wide base give it an imposing presence on the landscape allowing it to be seen for miles around. This church is also noteworthy because there is visible surviving evidence of the Anglo-Saxon church that came before most of what we see today- and we can learn that towards the late medieval period the village was not as large as it once was since the Norman tower was not replaced and only the chancel and south aisle were added later.
This is definitely worth a visit, if only for its distinctiveness and can be found about 15 minutes west of Diss on the A1066.