St Mary's Church

St Mary's Church, Hickling

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ST. MARY'S CHURCH, HICKLING

Services for July 2008

6th	11.00am	Come Worship The Lord
13th	10.00am	Benefice Communion at Catfield
20th	9.30am	Holy Communion
27th	11.00am	Morning Prayer

Morning prayer each Wednesday at 8.30am

5th Sunday - Service held jointly with Methodist Church -
(see What's On for times and venues)

In the Church there are many points of interest the visitor may care to note of which these are a few:

The overall atmosphere of the building is lofty and impressive. It is built of stone and, outside, of knapped flint; having five bays in the nave and a ninety-foot tower housing five bells. The present Church dates from the thirteenth century, rebuilt upon the site of an earlier building by the Canons of Hickling Priory. We can only imagine what the earlier Church may have looked like, serving a community that had lived here for some centuries before the Norman Conquest. The present Church has undergone much change, perhaps particularly at the Dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century; and during major internal 'restoration' in Victorian times, when the chancel screen, box pews, west-end gallery, and triple decker pulpit were removed.

The Sepulchral Slab, dating from 1250-1275, near the pulpit, was found at a depth of about eighteen inches below the nave during the nineteenth century restorations. It is thought to commemorate the wife or daughter of Theobald de Valoines, who founded the Priory in 1185, and may have been hidden in the Church for safekeeping at the Dissolution in 1536. It bears a Latin inscription proclaiming:

LET ROSA BY THE MERCY OF CHRIST ENJOY THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN WHOSE HEART BY THE LAW OF EARTH IS BURIED BENEATH THE STONE.

The octagonal Font is of the fourteenth century. On the stern are four traceried panels, and four with leaves; the same pattern recurring on the bowl.

A board near the north door lists the Priors of Hickling Priory from 1185 to the Dissolution, with the Vicars of Hickling from 1340.

Hand Drawn Bier (Parish Hearse) 1907
The last funeral that the Bier
was known to be used for was 1951

Among several interesting memorials are:

The chest tomb at the east end of the north aisle is understood to be that of
Sir William Wodehouse, to whom the Priory lands were granted by the Crown in 1542, and who died in 1571.

The plaque in the Chancel to John Calthrop (Calthorpe), who died in 1688, and described by Pevsner as "a reassembled piece attributed to William Stanton".

The War Memorials to those who fell in the World Wars, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.