The Glaven Valley Benefice St Margaret's Church, Cley
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The Old Church

In the Middle Ages it was the responsibility of the Rector to maintain the chancel of his church, repairing or even rebuilding when necessary. The patron and church wardens were responsible for the rest of the church and the bell tower. This is why the chancel of the church is often of a different architectural period from the nave, and the style less costly (as at Cley). Sometimes a new nave, if larger than the former one, had to be on a slightly different alignment to an existing chancel. This is the case with St Margaret's where the building in on a hill-side.

The first stage of the enlargement of St. Margaret's, towards the end of the thirteenth century, was the building of a new chancel, which appears much the same as we see it today. The chancel is simple in appearance except for the remains of a canopied sedilia on the south side. This was the usual position for the sedilia which was a series of seats for the use of the priest, deacon and sub-deacon and an ornate canopy signified to the congregation the importance of these dignitaries. The remains of this canopy gives the clue to the theory that the present mullion windows replaced earlier smaller windows. Mullions are slender vertical bars which divide a window into two or more lights.

The old church would have been roughly on the site of the present north aisle, with the existing tower, the oldest surviving feature, at its west end. The roof line of its small gabled nave can still be seen on the east face of the tower inside the church. During enlargement care would have been taken to minimize disruption to services. The large scale work on the transepts and nave are unlikely to have begun before about 1315, or even later. Although the transepts have been in ruins for some centuries the delicacy and beauty of the tracery of the south window can still be appreciated.

There may well have been a plan to build a new tower at the west end of the new nave and demolish the old one, but, if so, this had to be abandoned probably because of the great expense involved. The abandonment of this project no doubt explains why the last arch of the arcade separating the nave from the aisle is cut short at this juncture. The nave was lengthened and the west front built in the 1340s. The great west window dates from about 1400 but it may be a remodelling of the original window made necessary by a new roof with a lower pitch.

The aisle walls were raised somewhere about 1430-40 and new, larger, Perpendicular style windows were put in. This larger style window became possible with the addition of buttresses to give added strength and take the outward thrust of the higher walls.

The interior of the church was now much lighter; this is in no small measure due to the clerestory with its large cinquefoil windows and alternating smaller two-light windows.

The South Porch

Porches had been added to parish churches since the thirteenth century, but they were not common until the fifteenth, which is why so many of them are in the Perpendicular style. As well as offering shelter they were also used in weddings, baptisms and penances and also for trading, legal business and fairs.

The south porch of St. Margaret's is certainly one of the main features of the church. It contains a wealth of heraldry carved in stone and can be confidently dated to between 1405 and 1414. Beginning from the bottom of the arch on the left there are the following shields, to some of which reference has already been made:

1 St. George (cross)

2 Vaux (chequy)

3 Vaux (the old arms) or possibly Erpingham

4 Nerford (lion rampant)

5 de la Pole and Wingfield

6 Mortimer

7 Roos (three water bougets)

8 France and England

9 St. Peter (cross keys)

10 St. John the Baptist (paschal lamb)

11 St John the Apostle (dragons issuing out of cup)

12 Emblems of Crucifixion (pitchfork and sponge)

13 St. Andrew (saltire)

14 St. James (escallops)

15 St. Paul (cross swords)

16 St. George (cross)

Above the arch are, in the left spandrel the emblem of the Trinity and, in the right spandrel, the instruments of the Passion (cross, crown of thorns, ladder, nail, spear, pincers etc.) A spandrel is the space between two arches or the triangular-shaped blocking between the posts and beams of screens, etc.

Just outside the left spandrel is a coat of arms of Roos and Stafford impaled and outside the right spandrel the arms of Queen Anne of Bohemia (double headed eagle and lion rampant) impaling France and England quarterly representing Richard II. The crowned heads to the bottom left and right of the arch are conventional representations of Henry IV and his second wife, Joanna of Navarre, Duchess of Brittany.

Above the arch is a beautifully canopied niche and at one time there was a sundial above it. For reasons of safety this has been removed and now rests in the north aisle of the church.

Faces adorn the windows of the chamber over the porch and there is a wealth of external stonework worthy of note.

Inside the porch are stone seats. From here we can spend time to look up at the bosses at the intersections of the ribs of the vaulted roof which, although badly mutilated, deserve inspection. On one of them can be seen a vivid representation of an old woman throwing her distaff at a fox which is running away with her chicken.

Before leaving the south porch one should notice the external staircase (entered from the south aisle but closed to the public). The stairway only goes up to the level of the earlier aisle roof which shows that the porch was built before the aisle roof was raised. Above the porch is a delightful chamber, generally known as the parvis room. The chamber contains a fireplace and a massively constructed iron-bound chest which is so large that it can only have been built in situ. The room and chest no doubt provided a safe place for the books and documents of the church and parish and acted as a depository for wills. Frequently such rooms were used by Chantry Priests to sleep in, to be ready to celebrate early Mass for travellers. Such rooms were also used as schools for choir boys.

The West Porch

While the south doorway was the usual entrance to the church, the processional entrance, the west doorway, was also protected by a porch. If fell into ruin but was restored in 1911 and unfortunately it now masks the highly enriched 14th century doorway, which has an ogee crocketed hood moulding rising into a floriated finial (not now visible). An ogee is a continuous flowing double curve and crockets are carved projecting buds, flowers, curled leaves or bunches of foliage. The fine ironwork on the door should be noted, also the stone carved heads which although in a poor condition are those of King Edward III and Queen Philippa.

The North Porch

There is nothing of note in the north porch, which dates from the 15 th century.