Wymondham Abbey, Wymondham

Built as a Benedictine monastery and founded in 1107, Wymondham Abbey is a wonder to behold. Highlights include a 14th-century font, an 18th-century organ, and a jaw-dropping gilded reredos, commissioned in 1913 and completed in 1935 by Sir Ninian Comper, one of the last Gothic Revivalists.

The building has an interesting history. It was initially shared by the monks and the townspeople, serving as a parish church for Wymondham as well as a monastery, but the two parties were not seeing eye to eye. Eventually the matter was referred to the Pope, who divided the church, and therefore the responsibility, between them. The townspeople were awarded the nave, north-west tower and north aisle.

The latter was reroofed around 1430 to create a smallscale single-hammer-beam roof with carved angels, panelling and beautiful fretwork, in a clear demonstration of the secular population’s wealth and confidence. Meanwhile, the nave’s more substantial 15th-century single-hammer-beam roof boasts four-and-a-half-foot-tall angels with hands held up in blessing, or once holding objects that are now lost, their bodies all original and their wings replaced or restored over the years.

With the abbey having suffered great losses during the Reformation – the monastic buildings were all demolished – it’s a miracle that the angels have survived at all.

wymondhamabbey.org.uk

St Michael the Archangel, Booton, and St Nicholas, King’s Lynn, are both now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT), which looks after more than 350 historically important churches across England. For more information see visitchurches.org.uk.