Norfolk Grandeur - A visit to Salle church

I take you on a tour of Salle church in Norfolk, one of the grandest churches in the county. The church was built in the first half of the fifteenth century and its grandeur is a result of the great wealth of English merchant trade in this period. The church has many interesting features from that period, including lots of monumental brasses, including the great grandparents of Queen Anne Boleyn. There is a grand west entrance with figures of censing angels, choir stalls with misericords, a towering font cover, a painted rood screen, painted roofs, and a vaulted chamber over the porch. So there are lots to see in this very memorable building.

[@theodoranorton4779]

What a wonder! It has brought to life for me Dorothy L. Sayers' book, The Nine Tailors, which I often read at the New Year. Many thanks to you and Simeon.

[@reginaromsey]

Another Sayers Fan! I remember A Time Team episode that took place in the fens that had me rereading that one.

[@seanycactushead6697]

What an astonishing survival. Thank you so much for showing it to us Allan. I really enjoyed watching this.

[@rhiannonpoole6019]

Thank you for that wonderful tour of an amazing church. Those carvings on the choir stalls deserve a video all to themselves. I loved the angels in the vaulted roof, and especially the rood screen decorations of the Doctors of the Church - I am currently learning about the very early history of the Church so that was a bonus. The ancestor of Anne Boleyn would surely have turned under that stone if he had known what would happen.

[@philodendron6]

Gosh, what a beauty.

[@markkumollari]

Thanks, wonderful church - you had a nice, light day for filming this!

[@JonathanLight1]

Would love to go back in time to see a mass in this church

[@michaelhealy1590]

I really love your enthusiasm for these very special sacred buildings

[@allanbarton]

Thank you, it's a privilege to be able to share it in this way!

[@michaelhealy1590]

@Allan Barton - The Antiquary when I get to visit my cousin in Chesham, we usually go on local road trips to check out country churches and pubs, of course!

[@creekpeep]

This is one of my favorites. I would love to see a reenactment of a mass in one of these magnificent buildings.

[@markgoddard2560]

Marvellous tour. Thank you.

[@allanbarton]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@stepps511]

Thanks to your descriptions, I can well imagine the beauty of that building upon completion. What glory! Thank you, Allan!

[@allanbarton]

The collective effort of the people who built it is really quite astonishing - it is of cathedral proportions in the middle of the countryside.

[@donnapolizzia8553]

magnificent building

[@mrbojangles8133]

nice church and it looks like someone took regular care of it

[@lawriefoster5587]

Wonderful Church. I can remember, when I was in France in 1969, riding to Chartres, and all you could see in the distance for miles were the two magnificent Spires, calling the faithful. It makes me so sad and distressed that the Stained Glass was ruined in this Church. To me, a total heresy. Thank you so much for your explanations of these ancient Churches, I love to be continually educated.

[@dennisthompson2350]

It seems it will be well worth a visit.

[@bethena1855]

Thanks for the tour of this magnificent church with many fascinating medieval elements surviving. I really got a sense of the atmosphere which is great as I have little hope of seeing it in person at present.

[@allanbarton]

My pleasure, there is so much to see in Salle it is difficult to do it justice in a short video. You have so many beautiful churches in south Wales, I always enjoy watching your visits too, there is a wonderful contrast between them and the massive barns of east Anglia.

[@mirellaczajkowska-turek5819]

I am kindly jealous:))) and appreciate so much every movie from all these breathless monuments of the past

[@annlindsaywright3169]

This is a beautiful church but I prefer the small ones. I love the connection with the Boleyns. Yours is the best Chanel on you tube and I love your Antiquary magazine. Watching these makes my day in peaceful adoration of our ecclesiastical history. Thank you.

[@beachcaving]

Thank You! Immersing oneself into the alluring past is so easily done on your channel! Bravo! ❤🇺🇸

[@allanbarton]

Bless you for saying so Sally, glad you enjoying it.

[@Noonespecial237]

Wonderful…

[@388Caroline]

Thank you, Allan and Simeon. England is rich with beautiful churches 😊

[@allanbarton]

Our pleasure - we are blessed with such a wealth of fascinating churches.

[@valbrumby1068]

thank you so much for sharing this marvelous tour of a church I have longed to see for many years now. Exquisite.

[@allanbarton]

My pleasure, I do hope you are able to visit at some point.

[@valbrumby1068]

​@@allanbarton thank you. I certainly hope I am able to.

[@jaemcdonald6555]

What an extraordinary place.

[@bloggalot4718]

Beautiful craftsmanship.

[@johnbeal1405]

Nobody who visits North Norfolk or Broadland in Norfolk should leave without visiting the wonderful Salle church.

[@allanbarton]

Absolutely and to make a morning of it by visiting Cawston too and a day if you add in Worstead and Tunstead.

[@aadildesai]

Loved your interesting video of this great church, thanks so much for sharing!!! Would love to visit someday when I'm back there. The last time I was there it was undergoing restoration, so unfortunately it was closed.

[@allanbarton]

I do hope you can - it is usually kept open from dawn to dusk.

[@aadildesai]

@@allanbarton I'm not in the UK. I'm in Mumbai, India. I was on a visit to East Anglia to especially see the round tower churches and angel roofs besides others of course. So will have to wait for my next visit to the UK now.

[@allanbarton]

@@aadildesai I do hope you can make it soon.

[@spuddy4845]

would once have been thousands of agricultural workers toiling in the local fields, that church was packed out once upon a time

[@paulpowell4871]

wow

[@MyGreatAuntFanny]

We are peculiarly rich in churches here in Norfolk, and I often wonder at the size of the buildings in rural areas. But the big house would have had many staff, there was a large agricultural workforce, and guests of the local gentry would have swollen the congregation. Presumably, in this case, with all the different chapels, there would have been prayers on a kind of shift system, otherwise it would have been rather noisy!

[@bloggalot4718]

Tong church is worth a look.

[@allanbarton]

In Shropshire? Very much so, I was there about four years ago, spent around four hours photographing it. So much to see with all the Vernon monuments.

[@petersack5074]

? '' gi normous '' building ? Good, another new -er word. Penned by Mr Barton ! Like over here in Canada ( re: hockey ) Danny Gallivan, 50 years ago.....'' and a cannonating shot, from Bobby Hull ! '' (Was chief sports announcer, back - in - the - day. ) Good day, Sir.

[@ButterBobBriggs]

Did Anne Boleyn's family continue attending this church for generations after her great grandfather's time?

[@allanbarton]

No, the son of this Geoffrey Boleyn was apprenticed to a hatter and in time became Lord Mayor of London. His self-made wealth allowed him to purchase estates elsewhere in Norfolk (primarily at Blickling). They rose quickly from being prosperous peasants (yeomen) to being gentlemen and within four generations aristocracy. It was a pattern you see all over medieval England.

[@ButterBobBriggs]

@@allanbarton I read a tale that Anne's body is secretly buried in that church under a dark stone and comes to haunt the place on her execution day. A title like "Anna Boyeyn's Secret Tomb Revealed" would have given your video click bait numbers, 😆.

[@allanbarton]

@@ButterBobBriggs, I missed a trick there Bob - believe it or not, I have never heard this story, I will look into it further. How fascinating.

[@AulicExclusiva]

In modern French, a parvis (from Latin paradisus, paradise) is a forecourt, most notably the parvis of Notre Dame de Paris, that huge plaza before the great cathedral. I'm not sure how the word applies to an upper-story chapel! Curiously, though, Saint-Eustache in Paris also has such an elevated space, reached through an ornate staircase, where some weekday masses are celebrated. I don't get it. But the word paradis is also used for the uppermost perch in a theatre.

[@allanbarton]

The word seems to have first been applied to a porch chamber of an English church in the late 18th century, but seems to have come into general use by architectural historians in England in the 19th century. Yes, it is technically and etymologically nonsensical (so many English architectural terms are), but it is a term that for some reason has stuck, primarily because no other term was forthcoming. Porch chamber would be more accurate, but I don't know of anyone who calls them that - they are universally referred to as parvises in England. All good fun.

[@Xanaseb]

Jaw drop. A stream of questions for you, Allan, though don't feel compelled to answer them all!: How do you reckon the walls would have been painted? Stencils and foliage mostly, or some mural/frescoes too? Were the latter type still being painted by this point of the 15thC or had the larger arrays stained glass supplanted them in some way? How do you see the way that people would have related to stained glass imagery in those days and how should Christians now relate to them? Do you agree that in the high gothic period they aesthetically maintained a more iconographic form than wall paintings, but due to their ephemeral substance and detachment from the body of the church could not really have been venerated? One cannot reach up and touch them as one can a statue etc. But I think I'm probably not approaching this topic with the right frame. Many thanks, God bless

[@allanbarton]

Yes, there is some evidence at Salle of painting over the chancel arch. Everything else has either been obliterated or is still under the whitewash. I think your instinct is right regarding the relationship between wall paintings and glass. Between 1200 and 1400 windows are getting larger and larger and by the time you get to the period when Salle is built, churches are primarily glasshouses. Glass takes over as the primary iconographical vehicle from around 1400. There is not a lot of space in these buildings for wall paintings and for painted iconographical schemas, so they tend to become functional. They are primarily a means of sacralising space or creating a decorative or interpretative setting for three-dimensional images - the doom painting being one example of that. Down the road from Salle at Cawston, wall paintings survive on the east wall of the nave that form a decorative setting for the rood and a large image in a transept that forms an altarpiece. You could argue that an altarpiece forms a devotional focus during the mass, but there is no evidence that images in wall paintings, panel paintings, and glass were venerated in England in the same way that three-dimensional images were.

[@Xanaseb]

@@allanbarton many thanks

[@michaelhealy1590]

Could there have been a monastic settlement nearby?

[@allanbarton]

No, nothing monastic for ten miles around. It is prmarily just for show, we have the resources so let's build it.

[@tonibarrone854]

Why so many alters?

[@michaelgoodliffe4795]

You didn't mention the hatchments on the south wall.

[@allanbarton]

Sadly I ran out of battery before I got to that - I didn't manage to do the outside of the porches either.

[@peterkrauss6962]

Just sad

[@princerupert6161]

Heart breaking to such a magnificent church looking like an empty barn. The moors could not have done worse. So it's shocking to think English Christians did this. Shameful!