Barham

St Giles, locked, keyholder notice, is a pretty, little, transitional building in an attractive village but didn't seem likely to hold much of interest inside, so I didn't bother to try and find the keyholders - this may have been a mistake. I'll probably never know.

ST GILES. Nave, narrow N aisle, and chancel; no tower, but a bellcote of 1842. The S doorway and the three-bay arcade are Transitional between Norman and E.E. The doorway has one order of polygonal shafts, scallop capitals, zigzag set diagonally, and the arch just pointed (an alteration?). The arcade has round piers with square abaci and round arches with only a slight chamfer. The hood-mould also has a slight chamfer. But the capitals are one of the Late Norman waterleaf the other of the E.E. crocket variety. The E bay is wider than the others. The chancel is late C13 with Y- and intersecting tracery. - BOX PEWS. - C17 BENCHES with knobs on the ends (cf. Leighton Bromswold). - PLATE. Cup with bowl of c.1570.

 BARHAM. It has a few old houses and a church with a Norman arcade, its round pillars crowned with carved capitals. Over 30 generations of Barham folk have passed through its narrow south doorway, and 600 years seem to have so weighed down the chancel arch that it is now shaped rather like a child’s magnet. The 13th century chancel has a chalice of Elizabeth’s day and a 17th century altar table; the nave has benches of the 17th century. But the church’s oldest possessions are a 14th century coffin-lid and a font at which children have been christened since soon after Magna Carta. There is a Jacobean chest.

Flickr.