HERITAGE STATEMENT ST PETERS CHURCH THETFORD For THETFORD COUNCIL

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Later chimney separates nave from north chancel aisle. Four 2-light C15 north clerestory windows. North chancel aisle pierced by 3 paired lancets. South chancel lit through two C19 three-light Perpendicular windows. Stepped side buttresses. Arched brick C20 door to right. 3- light C19 east window. Running south from east buttress is a length of flint and brick wall containing a stone pointed arch. INTERIOR: 4-bay north arcade with double chamfered arches on octagonal piers. Moulded capitals and bases. Double-chamfered chancel arch with circular responds. North aisle roof has C15 moulded principals and one tier of butt purlins, carved arched braces and 4-centred wall arches. North chancel chapel with 3 arcade bays of double-chamfered pointed arches and a C16 four-bay roof of flat-moulded principals and butt purlins. Boarded barrel-vaulted chancel roof. C19 octagonal font in chancel. Seats and pulpit C19. West wall of nave with painted Royal Arms of George III. 1 2.3 To the north of St Peters Church the churchyard is defined by the boundary wall of No 2 White Hart Street and its associated car park. This building formed part of the former White Hart Inn together with No’s 2A, 4, 4A, 6 and 6A White Hart Street. This boundary wall is affected by the proposed work. 2.4 No’s 2, 2A, 4, 4A, 6 and 6A White Hart Street are Listed Grade II. They were listed on the 10 th March 1971 (amended 1 December 1993). IOE No: 384831. The listing description is as follows: THETFORD TL8683 WHITE HART STREET 617-1/5/153 (South East side) 10/03/71 Nos.2, 2A, 4, 4A, 6 AND 6A (Formerly Listed as: WHITE HART STREET (South East side) Nos.2-6 (Even)) GV II Formerly known as: White Hart Inn WHITE HART STREET. Former inn, now 2 shops and offices. C17 structure almost completely rebuilt C19, partly rebuilt late C20. Timberframed, flint and brick. Pantile roof. 2 storeys. Facade with 6 first-floor window bays, irregularly disposed. First floor rendered and colourwashed. Square carriage entrance to rear is set to left. Left of this is a bowed C19 shop front with a C20 glazed doorway. Ground floor to right of carriage arch rebuilt C20: 2 doors, a shop display window and a sash. Six 6/6 first-floor sashes. Hipped roof. South return with three 6/6 horned sashes each floor under segmental heads. Courtyard elevations extensively rebuilt late C20. 2-storey cross wing to rear of No.6 still has exposed flint, clunch and brick construction. One first-floor blocked window retains 3 ovolomoulded mullions. INTERIOR: cellar under No.2 much rebuilt. Ground floor of No.2 with timber studs evident and a dragon beam to south-west room suggesting a former jetty. First floor with chamfered and tongue-stopped bridging beams. Similar bridging beams survive elsewhere in Nos 4 & 6. 2 2.5 St Peters Church is located within the Thetford Conservation Area. 3.0 A HISTORY OF THE SITE AND SURROUNDINGS 3.1 The Historical Development of Thetford “Thetford has a long and quite extraordinary history. It has been a military stronghold and a cathedral town; a supply base on a prehistoric trading route; a monastic centre of worship and learning; a significant industrial centre and the home of an Assize Court. Thetford has even had a brief experiment as a spa resort and has gained world renown as the birth place of Thomas Paine. The last Maharajah of the Punjab, Duleep Singh, made his home at nearby Elveden and his son Prince Frederick later became Thetford’s most important benefactor. 1 Images of England website accessed 11/1/2013. 2 ibid
The fortunes of the town and numbers of its people have ebbed and flowed dramatically. At the time of the Norman Conquest, Thetford was a flourishing Danish stronghold and one of the six largest towns in England. But other, rival towns like Norwich and King’s Lynn soon provided stiff competition for local markets and Thetford began a long decline, only recovering in the eighteenth century with navigation improvements on the River Thet and industrial growth. The nineteenth century was a period of consolidation for Thetford, but a crisis came in 1929 with the closure of Thetford’s principal employer, Burrell’s Engineering works. More than five hundred jobs were lost and the resulting exodus caused the population to slump by a quarter to around 3,000 people – far less than there had been in the Saxon town nine hundred years earlier. The military bases in the Second World War provided some temporary recovery to the local economy but there was insufficient momentum to sustain the town in the post-war years and once again, Thetford’s survival was under threat. Thetford Borough Council responded by applying in 1952 to the London County Council for status as a London Overspill town, in the hope of bringing new homes and factories to rescue the town’s fortunes. A development scheme was approved and building began in 1958. Subsequent phases of development in the 1960s have more than quadrupled the size of the town, bringing its population to 21,588 (2001). Origins and early history Thetford is centred on the junction of the rivers Ouse and Thet. The town’s name means “the ford used by many people” and is a reminder of the river crossing on the Icknield Way, the great prehistoric trading route from the Cotswolds to Norwich. The track way was protected by an Iron Age fort to the north of the river, which 1,500 years later became Thetford’s Norman castle. The fort is believed to have been built by the Iceni tribe, which also had a stronghold to the north of the town at Gallows hill and from where Boudicca may have launched her assault against the Roman invaders. Saxon Thetford By the middle of the seventh century Thetford was wall established as a substantial settlement on the south side of the Ouse, close to Red Castle at the western end of the present town. In the first written reference to Thetford, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles record the occupation in 869 of the Dames. Anglo-Scandinavian defences were constructed a few decades later, in a great semicircular sweep from Red Castle to Nun’s Bridges. The western end of these earthworks remains visible today. Within this defensive area, the Saxon settlement would have been very scattered, with large tracts of open land amongst the houses. The ditches and defences were strengthened in the 980’s, but they were insufficient to prevent the sacking of the town by Swein of Denmark in raids in 1004 and 1010. Thetford grew to become the centre of Danish occupation in East Anglia and, with its population of almost five thousand, a town of comparable size to Lincoln, Oxford and Norwich. Medieval Thetford Thetford’s importance in the eleventh century is evident in the remains of its Norman castle, which has one of the largest mounds (mottes) in the country, suggesting that it was intended to have a permanent stone building on the top. The town also had a cathedral, St Mary the Greater, on the site of the present Grammar School.
Page 1 and 2: HERITAGE STATEMENT ST PETERS CHURCH
Page 3: 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 St Peters Chur
Page 7 and 8: As noted, the population quadrupled
Page 9 and 10: How much this drawing of St Peter
Page 11 and 12: We know from the 1851 Ecclesiastica
Page 13 and 14: the Nave 8 attributed to G.B.Burrel
Page 15 and 16: and the decline of Thetford in nati
Page 17 and 18: The phase one works which constitut
Page 19 and 20: The need to remove the pews and the
Page 21 and 22: introductions. They are as describe
Page 23: The justification for direct connec

HERITAGE STATEMENT ST PETERS CHURCH THETFORD For THETFORD COUNCIL

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