Yaxham – St. Peter’s Church
The entrance to St. Peter’s church in Yaxham is up a quiet little road and it doesn’t take much imagination to think of generations gone by meandering up here to attend a service.
Norfolk Heritage Explorer tells me that the banding on the church tower shows that it’s constructed of carstone and this helps date that part of the building to the late Saxon period. I’m still always impressed when reading dates like that, it means that the bottom of the tower was standing when William the Conqueror invaded England. The upper part of the tower is from the fourteenth century, with the bulk of the rest of the church being from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Later that might be, but the vast majority of this church was standing when King Henry VIII decided that the Dissolution of the Monasteries was a good idea.
The church viewed from the south east and it looks like the rood stairs have been added to the exterior where the nave and chancel meet. George Plunkett took a photo from near enough the same spot in 1937 and little has changed, with all the gravestones appearing to still be there. One change is that a small tree in the 1937 photo has now gone and it’s a reminder to myself that, although in a small way, the landscape can change over time even within a graveyard.
Robert Ladbrooke’s illustration of the church from the mid-nineteenth century.
The church viewed from the north east.
The chancel end of the church, with this section, amongst others, being subject to Victorian restoration.
Unfortunately, the church wasn’t open on the Saturday morning that I visited, although I had rather hoped it would be. There’s sometimes the misapprehension that damage to religious buildings is a recent thing, but in 1908 a number of local churches were smashed into and their collections stolen. The culprits were found, but Yaxham lost its money and its door was forced open.
The graveyard is relatively large and it’s all well-kept, with a little woodland path through the trees. Although Yaxham is just a short distance from Dereham, it felt remote and peaceful and I suspect that little will change here in the next couple of hundred years.
