St Peter and St Paul’s, Bittering Parva
This church is kept locked but there is a keyholder notice on the door.
Grade II*
This church building is managed by Norwich Diocesan Churches Trust.
Past Dereham, northward, where no traffic jam lets Poisons escape and strangle nature's grace, Where villages to hamlets melt and hamlets Dissolve to meadows; in that empty space You'll find St Peter's Church at Bittering Parva, So small - forgive the rhyme - you couldn't halve her. An Ode to St Peter and St Paul's Church by Kenneth Matthews. This charming church is easy to miss amongst the fields. The surrounding area is seeped in lost history, and the church almost went the same way. It was declared redundant in the 1970s but is now in the care of the Diocesan Churches Trust. Across the road, the bumps in the field are all that is left of the medieval village of Little Bittering. Just to the north of the church was a moated Elizabethan manor house, demolished in the 19th century. To the south was Bittering Hall, home of the Wilberforce family. This was demolished in the 1980s and its parkland turned over to gravel quarrying. The church comprises a nave and chancel under one roof and is only 50ft long by 18ft wide. Mainly Early English in style, dating to the mid 13th century, lancet windows sit alongside later simple Perpendicular windows. Inside, there is a similarly unassuming Norman font. Other features include a Jacobean pulpit and benches, a 15th century wooden screen and a 13th century sedilia and piscina in the chancel. Don't miss the ancient stone coffin lids.Incorrect information? Update this entry