NHER 10779 (Building record) - St Mary the Virgin's Church, Pulham St Mary

Early (Norman?) tower encased in late 15th century work. 13th century chancel and aisle, all recased and porch added around 1500. Restored 1886. Medieval lectern, wooden arches to windows in porch room.
For full details see file.
E. Rose (NAU), 30 September 1982.

This is one of the sixty five Norfolk churches selected for (S1).
D. Gurney (NLA), 17 February 2006.

October-November 2016. Watching Brief.
Maintained during groundworks associated with installation of new kitchenette and disabled toilet within church tower.
The floor of the tower (concealed by these works) consists of York stone paving slabs that were lain during the 1880's restoration of the church. Two memorial ledger stones within the floor were probably moved to the tower at this time; one - a late 17th-century memorial to a Mary Stebbing - having been documented within the chancel in the early 19th century. The excavation of a sewerage pipe trench revealed a reworked or disturbed fine clay silt soil deposit containing lumps of grey-green clay that potentially represented the remnants of a broken-up floor surface. This material clearly post-dated the construction of the tower and the excavations did not reach its base. It produced a small assemblage of post-medieval finds indicative of a 17th- to 18th-century date (none of which were retained). This deposit was truncated by a trench likely to have been associated with the heating system installed in the mid-20th century. On one side of this trench was a small masonry structure built from reused 'Georgian' brick and tiles which were bonded to the adjacent north wall of the tower. Where the new trench passed beneath the threshold of west door it exposed a portion of the tower's substantial wall foundations, which were shown to be 2.4m wide and made of bonded flint and hard lime mortar. The ground level within the churchyard is now higher than the level of the tower floor – which had required the insertion of a later stone stop across the threshold of the west door.
Information from report uploaded to OASIS. HER copy awaited.
P. Watkins (HES), 25 August 2025.