SEE MY TRAVEL PAGE ON FACEBOOK : www.facebook.com/motorhomefulltime Driving through the Norfolk countryside, suddenly in the middle of nowhere appears this huge cathedral like structure. Rev Whitwell Elwin, was the rector of a church on this site in the mid 1850s. He decided to build this church, ignoring the lack of congregation. He gave it the name of St. Michael the Archangel. The church is constructed in flint with limestone dressings, and has tiled roofs. Its plan consists of a nave, a chancel, a north porch, a south vestry, and twin west towers. The whole is in an "eccentric French Gothic style". The towers are slim and set diagonally. They are in three stages, the lower two stages containing elongated blank arcading. The top stage contains tall bell openings, and on the summit of the towers are pierced friezes with crocketed pinnacles on the corners. Between the towers is a doorway, over which is a four-light window. A three-tier pinnacle rises from the west gable. This also has blank arcading and has the appearance of a minaret. Along the sides of the church, the bays are separated by buttresses with crocketed pinnacles, and there are similar pinnacles on the gable ends. In the south wall of the chancel is a priest's door, and above this is an elaborately carved niche. Set inside the east wall of the north porch is a 14th-century headless statue of the Virgin and Child that was discovered during the building of the church. The nave has a hammerbeam roof which is decorated with carved wooden angels by James Minns, a local master-carver. The roof of the chancel is a false hammer-beam. Above the chancel arch is a triangular opening. Around the nave wall is linenfold dado panelling. The pulpit and other fittings all date from the 19th century. The stained glass depicts angels, musicians, and female faces. The architect Edward Lutyens said of the church that it was "very naughty but built in the right spirit". The architect of the church and designer of the fittings and stained glass, Rev Elwin, was a descendant of Pocahontas and was from 1853 to 1860 the editor of the Quarterly Review. He had no architectural training, and based his designs on details of other churches, and from his own imagination. According to the guidebook produced by the Churches Conservation Trust, the design of the west doorway was inspired by a doorway at Glastonbury Abbey, the triangular opening above the chancel arch by Lichfield Cathedral, the stained glass in the nave windows from St Mary's Church at Temple Balsall, Warwickshire, and that in the west window by St Stephen's Chapel in the Palace of Westminster. The hammer beam roof is said to be based on that of Saint Botolph's Church in Trunch, Norfolk My channel on you tube : www.youtube.com/alanheath is one of the most prolific from Poland. I have produced around 1,800 original films, most in English. My big interest in life is travel and history but I have also placed films on other subjects. Please feel free to ask questions in the public area or to comment on things you disagree with. Sometimes there are mistakes because I speak without preparation. If I see the mistakes myself, I make this clear in the text. Please also leave a star rating! There are a number of films here on the packaging industry. This is because I am the publisher of Central and Eastern European Packaging -- www.ceepackaging.com - the international platform for the packaging industry in this region focusing on the latest innovations, trends, design, branding, legislation and environmental issues with in-depth profiles of major industry achievers. Most people may think packaging pretty boring but it possibly effects your life more than you really imagine! Central and Eastern European Packaging examines the packaging industry throughout this region, but in particular in the largest regional economies which are Russia, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Austria. That is not to say that the other countries are forgotten, they are not, but obviously there is less going on. However the fact that there are so many travel related films here is not from holidays but from business trips attending trade fairs around the region. Every packaging trade fair is a new excuse to make another film!

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