¹ An important basis for such research has been provided by the work of Harvey, John H., particularly in his English Medieval Architects, a Biographical Dictionary down to 1550 (London, 1954).Google Scholar

² Notably two unpublished University of London Ph.D. theses: R. K. Morris, Decorated Architecture in Herefordshire: Sources, Workshops and Influence, 1972, and Eileen Roberts, Perpendicular Architecture in Hertfordshire: a Search for Medieval Architects through Mouldings, 1973.

³ Based on research submitted to the University of East Anglia as a Ph.D. thesis in 1975 by the writer, Later Gothic Architecture in Norfolk, an Examination of the Work of some Individual Architects in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. An account of the works discussed in this paper is to be found there, pp. 326–93, although the conclusions now offered involve several changes of interpretation from that account.

⁴ It may be significant that repetition of both details and general forms is found more often in East Anglia in towers than in other parts of church buildings, possibly suggesting that certain masons specialized in such structures, and because of the relative difficulty of the work were more prone to rely on tried and proven forms. In Norfolk the towers of Wickhampton and Broome, for example, show a remarkably close similarity to each other. See Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 394 ff.

⁵ Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 30–2, Doke.

⁶ Works to the south aisle, which may possibly be linked with the addition of the south porch, were in progress in the 1480s on the evidence of bequests of 1487 and 1490 from John Robyns (Norwich Archdeaconry Wills, 117, Fuller) and William Wylkyns (Norwich Archdeaconry Wills, 200, Fuller).

⁷ Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 130–2, Aleyn. Blicking gave 40s. to new leading and roofing. The roof referred to in this bequest is probably not the existing one, which is of a type more likely to date from the later fifteenth century (although it was partly reconstructed after a gas explosion in 1876). It is probable that Blicking's bequest was towards a roof which predated the present clerestory.

⁸ The two panels depict SS. Leonard and Agnes and SS. Apollonia and William. There is much evidence to suggest that the mayors of the city usually made some substantial gift to their own parish church during their term of office, presumably as a form of thanksgiving.

⁹ Examples illustrating this are the Norwich churches of St. Lawrence and St. Peter Mancroft, see Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 522 and 527. At St. Peter Mancroft, for example, Thomas Kempe gave 40s. to the leading and the same sum to the painting of the lower part of the rood screen in 1479 (Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 32, Awbreye).

¹⁰ Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 101, Doke.

¹¹ Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 28, Aleyn. That these works were part of a larger operation of reconstruction is suggested by an inscription commemorating Judge William Paston, who died in 1444, in the east window of the north nave chapel, and by a bequest of 1451 from Thomas Estweyt ‘ad opus novo ecclie’ (Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 94, Aleyn).

¹² Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 67–8, Bryggs. His will provided for the ‘reparacion and makyng upp of the south ele … and to the making of a new porch there 20 marks starting with such tymber as I hav redy hewn yf the town will go about it and cause it be made and fynnysed within 2 yers next after my decease’. Evidence of further works around this time is provided by the will of Robert Ledall, who left funds in 1514 ‘to the making of the beme the which the rode shall stond on’ (Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 8, Spyrlynge).

¹³ Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 103–4, Wylbey. The tower was presumably completed by 1474, in which year there was a bequest to the bells by Jn. Ledale (Norwich Archdeaconry Wills, 391, Grey).

¹⁴ Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 142, Brosyard. It is also significant that the naves of Hilborough and Fincham have window tracery of identical form, apart from minor differences of cusping, and that at both churches the width of the windows, excluding the outer reveals, is 67½ inches.

¹⁵ The south porch appears to have been the first stage of a limited remodelling of this aisleless church. Later works involved the addition of transepts and vestry, the piercing of larger windows and a new roof. The south transept can be dated to about 1464 from bequests by Gregory Draper and Robert Wood (Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 90–1 and 164, Betyns). The vestry was nearing completion in 1466, when Alice Nythe gave money for its leading (Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 90–1, Cobald) and in the same year money was given to finish the north transept by Henry Toke (Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 107, Cobald).

¹⁶ The inscription is on the north-west buttress of the north aisle, and states ‘Ista: ecca: ffuit: ffūdita: A: dni: m°: cccc: xxx: iv’. The porch is not bonded into the aisle wall, the base course of which continues behind it, and it shows no stylistic affinity with the rest of the building.

¹⁷ Goddard and Denver quarterly for Sir John Goddard. Remodelling of the church may have started in the later fourteenth century on the evidence of a bequest from Thomas Bristofte ‘fabrico ecclie’ in 1386. In the course of the ensuing operation wider aisles and a two-bay porch were added to the mid fourteenth-century nave arcades and tower, and the chancel appears to have been completed by 1423 since it is recorded that that date appeared in three of its windows (Blomefield, Francis, Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 2nd edition (London, 1805–1810)Google Scholar. The north porch is secondary to this work.

¹⁸ See Victoria County History, Norfolk, vol. 2 (London, 1906), pp. 336–43.Google Scholar

¹⁹ The tower was part of a larger scheme of works to the western limb of the church, which also included the heightening of the clerestory and the widening of the north aisle. Clifton was a major benefactor to these works, and both Clifton and Ogard were eventually buried within the abbey.

²⁰ He also left 20s. to the tower in his will (Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 103–4, Wylbey).

²¹ Salzman, L. F., Building in England down to 1540 (Oxford, 1952), p. 123.Google Scholar

²² The fullest description of the heraldry and carved detail is given in Goulburn, Edward Meyrick, The Ancient Sculptures in the Roof of Norwich Cathedral … to which is added a History of the See of Norwich (London and Norwich, 1876), pp. 460–3.Google Scholar

²³ This bequest is referred to in Suckling, Alfred, History and Antiquities of Suffolk, vol. 1 (London, 1846), p. 14.Google Scholar

²⁴ Earlier indications of a tendency at Beccles to look to the cathedral for inspiration may be observed in the east window of the south choir chapel, where the early rectilinear tracery is derived from that of the cathedral choir clerestory of the 1360s. The window is possibly part of a campaign of c. 1369, when there was a bequest ‘ad fabricam novae ecclesiae Becclys’.

²⁵ ‘unam magnam fenestram … ad decorationem et illuminationem ejusdem ecclesie’, see Goulburn, op. cit., pp. 466–7.

²⁶ John H. Harvey has argued, op. cit., pp. 299–300, that the Erpingham Gate and the frontispiece of the cathedral should be attributed to James Woderofe, since his presence is recorded at the cathedral from 1415–16 until 1450–1, and he was clearly a mason of considerable importance. This view was tentatively accepted in Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 326–93; however, closer examination of the details of Woderofe's known works at Norwich cathedral, in the cloister and beneath the relic chamber, has suggested to the writer that there is insufficient evidence for this view to carry full conviction, although it must certainly remain a possibility.

²⁷ For example, in 1499 Lady Townshend of Raynham in Norfolk ordered that on her tomb there was to be ‘cunningly graven a sepulchre for Easter Day’ (Bond, Francis, The Chancel of English Churches (Oxford, 1916), p. 234).Google Scholar

²⁸ Calendar of Papal Registers, Papal Letters 1431–47, 14 Kal. June 1442.

²⁹ British Library, Add MS. 34122A.

³⁰ Carthew, G. A., ‘Charter of Sir Thomas Erpingham and another, feoffees for the Lord de Morley’, Norfolk Archaeological Journal, ix (1884), 114.Google Scholar

³¹ John H. Harvey, op. cit., p. 3, has made the point that ‘moulds were frequent bequests to favourite apprentices or junior partners’. Robert Couper of York's bequest of his ‘exemplar’ to his son in 1459 appears to be an instance of this (Prerogative Court of York: Probate Registry, vol. 2,415, quoted by Harvey, p. 75).

³² Gairdner, J., The Paston Letters (London, 1872).Google Scholar