All Saints Church feels cosily tucked away despite its location atop a small hill, upon which its round tower has stood since at least the eleventh century. The church, is believed to date back to around 1066, is a unique building with a fantastic heritage
The most distinctive feature of the church is the obvious round tower, a characteristic it shares with 177 other churches in East Anglia. What makes it unique is the lack of stone in most of this area.
The North door is one of the gems of this church which dates back to the 12th century even though it is very ‘Norman’ in style
Piscina is the Latin word for a public bath, the place where Romans went to get clean (piscine in French). In the church, it’s a place where ceremonial vessels could be emptied and washed - purified for the next use. For this purpose it was situated as near the altar as possible so that the priest could dispose of unused hosts (wafers) or holy water in the proper way, by returning them to the earth through the drain-hole in the basin. Usually one piscina would have been considered adequate, but during the 13th and 14th centuries there was a fashion for having two, a fashion which the builders at All Saints were pleased to adopt, perhaps for reasons of status?
The All Saints piscinae are decorated with cinquefoil arches, arches made in the shape if 5 leaves and the basins in the shape of petals.
I have since found some more history about this church and will update the description shortly
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