THIS FINAL CHAPTER EXPLORES the available evidence relating to the people who paid for church porches or are represented in the built fabric. What was the nature of their involvement and to what extent did they influence the building's form? The discussion is in two parts. In the opening section, geographical focus moves beyond East Anglia to nearby Essex and looks in detail at the fifteenth-century churchwardens’ records for the large town church of St Mary in Saffron Walden. These accounts are a remarkable source of information for understanding the circumstances in which a church porch was planned and realised in eastern England. No comparable primary text survives for a porch in Norfolk or Suffolk. The Saffron Walden document informs where money to build the porch came from and between whom responsibility for the procurement of materials and labour was divided. The initiating benefaction appears to have come from Thomas Barker in the form of his testamentary bequest of 1466 but in what role should he be cast when the other players are recognised? Discussion subsequently turns to analyse the East Anglian testamentary material, specifically the textual sources which record bequests made to the building (rather than the repair or renewal) of a porch. From the most productive documents information is drawn concerning how, after the testator's death, the commission was realised.

In the second part of the chapter attention shifts from the documents and returns to the architectural evidence of the buildings themselves. Inscriptions and motifs bonded into the fabric of porches, such as inclusion of personal, often heraldic, motifs and inscriptions are evidence of direct patronal association, whether that be of an individual, family or other social network. One such example is the south porch at St Margaret’s, Cley-next-the-Sea. As discussed earlier, the porch was built c.1414 and presents an elaborate display of heraldic and quasi-heraldic motifs framing the entrance, including the arms of England and Anne of Bohemia, several armigerous families connected to the parish and surrounding area, and saints’ emblems presented in armorial fashion. The scheme is apparently a composition of the dynastic lineage, social connections and devotional allegiances of the likely patroness, Lady Beatrice Stafford.