Race on to save incredible medieval wall paintings in Norfolk

Tiny Crostwight church stands in fields. It lost its village centuries ago and much of its tower more than 100 years ago.

But push open the door to the medieval flint, thatch and tile building and see walls alive with saints and angels, characters from the Bible and folklore, demons, donkeys, fish and plants.

The church, between North Walsham and Happisburgh, has some of the best medieval wall paintings in the country.

It is a treasury of art created more than 700 years ago. Once many medieval churches would have been decorated like this. Now most of the vivid wall paintings are gone - and the remarkable Crostwight pictures are in urgent need of preservation.

It will cost £56,000 to stabilise the most vulnerable sections of the paintings. Remarkably members of this tiny church have already raised much of the money needed from in grants and generous individual donations – but still need £10,000 before work can start, ideally this summer. “This is not an easy task for a tiny, rural community,” said churchwarden Peter Williams.

The church shares its rector with nearby Honing and five other parishes and holds around nine services a year, mainly in the summer because there is no lighting or heating, plus a candlelit Christmas carol service.

The paintings have been described as “exceptionally complete” by Historic England – but as part of its Heritage at Risk register.

“They are in a very fragile state, because the plaster layer on which they were painted is coming away from the wall,” said Peter. “When so much medieval church art has been lost in this country, it is important that the little that remains is preserved for future generations to enjoy.

And he said that despite its isolation the church and its remarkable art is loved by many. “It is astonishing how many people visit such a remote little church,” he said.

Crostwight parish is joined with nearby Honing and the joint parochial church council hosts several fundraising events every year to help maintain the two churches but Peter said: “It is very difficult for such a small community to do more, especially as there are no facilities at Crostwight church. However, parishioners have been selling booklets, garden produce, antique linens, etc specifically to raise money for the wall paintings.”

Peter and his wife Fiona, have been members of the congregation since moving to Crostwight six years ago. “We first saw the paintings just after we arrived in Crostwight, and realised at once that they were special,” said Peter.

“Neither of us was a church historian. Researching the history of the church and paintings has been a retirement activity, driven by curiosity,” said Peter who was the chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency for higher education.

Fiona has now written two fascinating and beautifully illustrated guides to the church and its paintings to help raise awareness of the treasures inside, piecing together the history of this ancient place from wills, land deeds and account books and clues from the building itself.

The paintings at Crostwight represent art made for ordinary people, and we are particularly lucky to know the names and occupations of some of the first parishioners to have seen the wall paintings, because their names are listed in the 1381 poll tax return,” she said.

And do Peter and Fiona have favourite paintings? “We like them all, but we’re particularly fond of the Tree of the Seven Deadly Sins, which would have looked so dramatic when first painted,” said Peter. “It’s a good example of the vivid way in which the teachings of the Church were presented to lay people in the late Middle Ages.”

Today the paintings are an astonishing survival of our distant past, a vivid parade of village characters alongside people, angels and demons from folklore and the Bible, which still speak to the people of Crostwight, Norfolk, and beyond.

The parish has launched an appeal to raise the final £10,000 needed before restorations can begin. Donations can be made to its JustGiving page.

The paintings - from seven deadly sins to warning against gossips

No one knows who painted the pictures which once covered the walls of Crostwight church but between 1350 and 1380 vibrant scenes from the bible, portraits of protective saints and warnings to village gossips took shape.

In an age when few people could read, and the Bible readings were in Latin, not English, these pictures told stories.

Two women gossip in the painting above the north door, watched by demons. The women’s rosaries hang forgotten from their hands, as they talk and the painting is believed to be a warning against talking during services. Similar paintings can also be seen in churches of Colton, Eaton and Little Melton, all near Norwich and Seething.

A tree, its branches heavy with demons holding pictures of the Seven Deadly Sins in their mouths, grows from the gaping jaws of a hellish monster. The sins are labelled in Latin with pride at the top of the tree, high above gluttony, avarice, envy, sloth, lust, and anger.

A painting of St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, stands opposite the entrance door, ready to bless people as they passed.

Further along the wall the paintings tell the Easter story in nine scenes from Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to his death and resurrection and ascension to heaven.

It is the most complete medieval Easter sequence in East Anglia.

But as the Reformation took hold paintings, statues and carvings began to be considered idolatrous and superstitious. By 1547 Edward VI they should be destroyed across the country.

More than 200 years later the Crostwight paintings were rediscovered during restoration work and each picture was faithfully copied in drawings and watercolours - before they were painted over again.

Some were destroyed for ever and today exist only as those 1847 paintings and drawings by artist Harriet Gunn. Her watercolours are now in the British Library.

One shows a delicately feathered archangel St Michael defeating a dragon, another of the lost wall paintings depicts Jesus being baptised in a river full of fish.

“Church restorers wanted clean unadorned walls,” said Peter. “A few people were intrigued by old wall paintings, but the idea that those paintings should remain visible was not commonplace. We are lucky, though, that the medieval plaster on the north wall at Crostwight was sound enough to be whitewashed over, rather than replaced.

“However, some plaster probably had to be replaced, destroying the paintings.”

The pictures would originally have been mainly red, purple and yellow, with paint made from natural minerals – but are faded because so much pigment was lost when the whitewash was scraped off in 1847.

In 1938 the surviving paintings were uncovered again and conservation work, carried out with the best of intentions, probably hastened the decline. A waxy coating designed to preserve the paintings and restore their vibrancy trapped salt solutions, forcing layers of paint and plaster apart, and, over time, darkening and obscuring the pictures.