page_title: St Nicholas, Blakeney
section_title: Furnishings and fixtures
hierarchical_section_title: St Nicholas, Blakeney / Furnishings and fixtures
caption_attribution_description: English: The church of St Nicholas - Norwich School glass. St Nicholas' church &gt; 843950 - 843958 - 843969 is one of only two churches in all of England that has a seven lights east window &gt; 843954. It stands high above what used to be Blakeney's harbour and the unusual tower at its northeastern corner once held a light, helping ships' navigation &gt; 843953. Only the 13th century vaulted chancel &gt; 843961 - furnished with C15 stalls &gt; 843962 - survived the extensive restoration work carried out during the 19th century and some of the north aisle windows still contain medieval glass of the Norwich School (seen here). The C14 octagonal font is carved with the signs of the four Evangelists and four seated prophets &gt; 843970. The rood screen dates from 1910 and all the benches in the nave are 19th century &gt; 843966. The south windows are by J Powell &amp; Son (1900), the east window dates from 1895. The church is open every day. For more information see: http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/blakeney/blakeney.htm
context_page_description: St Nicholas is the Anglican parish church of Blakeney, Norfolk, in the deanery of Holt and the Diocese of Norwich. The church was founded in the 13th century, but the greater part of the church dates from the 15th century when Blakeney was a seaport of some importance. Of the original structure only the chancel has survived rebuilding, perhaps owing to its link to a nearby Carmelite friary. An unusual architectural feature is a second tower, used as a beacon, at the east end. Other significant features are the vaulted chancel with a stepped seven-light lancet window, and the hammerbeam roof of the nave. St Nicholas is a nationally important building, with a Grade I listing for its exceptional architectural interest.
  Much of the original church furniture was lost in the Reformation, but a late-Victorian restoration recreated something of the original appearance, as well as repairing and refacing the building.
  The Victorian woodwork was created to match the few older pieces that remained, or to follow a similar style; thus, the new wooden pulpit follows the themes of the medieval font.
context_section_description: The octagonal font dates from the 15th century; its carved panels alternate images of the symbols of the Four Evangelists with seated figures of the Doctors of the Church (Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, and Pope Gregory I). The central column carries shields depicting the Instruments of the Passion and the Holy Wounds. The eastern shield is unusual in that a sword is shown with an ear stuck to it. This refers to the story of Saint Peter striking off the ear of Malchus, the High Priest's servant, in the garden of Gethsemane.
  Most East Anglian churches lost their medieval furnishings in the upheavals of the Reformation, and Blakeney is no exception. Apart from the hammerbeam roof, there is little original wood work in the nave; a few benches in the aisles, the fleur-de-lis-decorated beam supporting the rood, and two panels of the rood screen. The chancel retains four of its original choir stalls with their misericords, which are decorated with head and leaf motifs on the arms. St Nicholas benefited from sympathetic restoration in the late 19th and early 20th century. The new stalls and misericords match the style of the old, and the 1886 pulpit echoes the font, with the Instruments of the Passion on the stone stand, and the twelve Apostles carved on the woodwork. The pulpit has been described as "Victorian craftsmanship of matchless quality". The north porch was restored in 1896, and in the following year the west tower was repaired, and pews of a 15th-century pattern placed in the nave.
  1910 saw the restoration of the rood screen in a style consistent with that of the two ancient panels, the reconstruction of the rood loft, and the installation of a Norman and Beard two-manual organ with more than a thousand pipes. The organ pipes are above the parclose screens; the bellows, wind chest and electric blower are concealed in the chamber above the chancel. The stalls with their misericords were restored in 1913. The rood crucifix, flanked by St Mary and St John, came from Germany in 1913.
  Much church plate, such as the chalice and pyx had been confiscated, sold or stolen in the heat of the Reformation. In the more tolerant climate of Elizabethan England, the excesses of extreme Protestantism were curbed by centralised control of the Church of England, the Act of Uniformity and the Book of Common Prayer. Most churches then had to buy a new chalice; Blakeney's was purchased in 1567, and exchanged for another in 1716. One lost treasure is a "Map of the World" (Mappa Mundi et Chroniculum Mundi), which was recorded as present in the church in 1368. This is thought more likely to be a version of Ranulf Higdon's Polychronicon, a geographical text, than a true map like the Hereford Mappa Mundi.
  The stained glass is mostly late-19th-century Arts and Crafts by James Powell and Sons. Powell, coincidentally based at Whitefriars, a former Carmelite friary in London, used leading members of the movement such as Edward Burne-Jones as designers, and his nine windows at Blakeney are regarded as fine examples of his work. The east window dating from 1895 represents the Te Deum, and the south windows, glazed in 1900, tell the story of the early British church. Some 15th-century fragments of the original Norwich School glass that had been buried in the churchyard during the Reformation were incorporated into one of the otherwise plain windows in the north aisle in 1938, showing "Christ rising from the tomb", with six figures above. Five of the figures are angels; there would have been nine originally, one for each order. The sixth image depicts a female saint wearing a crown. The angel's legs are clothed in "feather tights", believed to have been derived from costumes worn in medieval religious plays. The north porch is flanked by two blue-themed modern stained glass windows by Jane Gray from 2002, one dedicated to the RAF, the other to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). The stained glass, taken as a whole, has been described as showing a "phenomenal standard of composition and artistry ... Few churches contain such a
caption: Fifteenth-century glass panel
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