Norfolk: Langley, Parish Church of St Michael

There is a fourteenth-century tower with a later perpendicular west window. The nave was restored in the early nineteenth century when the windows were renewed and the glass installed by Sir Thomas and Lady Beauchamp Proctor of nearby Langley Hall; the chancel was also remodelled at this time. ¹ The large collection of glass here is derived from a number of different sources. None of the glass can be proved to be original to the church, but several heraldic panels with local connections suggest this possibility. The shield in nII, 1a represents the marriage of John Berney (born 1516) and Mary Floyde (1516–1558) and that in nII, 1b is for John’s father Richard Berney and his mother Catherine Hubbard. A brass to John’s son Robert (died 1628) is in the church. The Berney’s were lords of Langley manor until they sold it to Sir John Hobart, the final payment being received in 1628. ² Window sIII has a series of impaled arms for the Le Grys family. They date from the sixteenth century, when this family was seated in Brockdish in south Norfolk, but Blomefield and Parkin has them descended from Sir Robert Le Grys of Langley. Three marriages can be identified. The shield in 2b is for William Le Grice of Brockdish, Esq., who married Sibill Singleton and that in 1a is for Anthony le Grys, his son (died 1553), who married Margaret Wingfield (died 1562). The latest known marriage represented is that of William Le Grice, Esq., living in 1598, who married Alice Eyre and whose shield is at 3b of this window. Two other shields show unidentified marriages with women of the Tendring family; a prominent family in Brockdish. ³ Two shields relating to the Godsalve family are in nII at 2a and 2b, one dated 1583; a branch of this family was at nearby Buckenham Ferry. ⁴ A closer link with Langley is provided by the two pairs of shields with the rebus of Robert Walkyngton, the last abbot of Langley. These were recorded by Blomefield and Parkin in the church in the eighteenth century. ⁵ Whether any of this heraldry was made for the church, or came from the hall, where there was a large collection of glass until the 1960s, or, in the case of the Walkyngton rebuses, from the abbey or abbot’s lodge in Langley, is not known for certain.

There are four roundels probably of Norwich manufacture with pious texts, three in Middle English and one in Latin. These appear to be from the same series as six similar roundels at Thurton, where a collection of mixed foreign and local origin similar that at Langley was given by the same donor, Lady Beauchamp Proctor. The roundels at Thurton form pairs of rhyming texts. ⁶ In view of the possible derivation of the Langley rebuses from the abbot’s lodge or the abbey buildings, a similar possible location for these texts may be tentatively suggested, although they may derive from a domestic context elsewhere.

There is also a group of heraldic panels of mixed origin. These include some from the continent, and they will be considered with the figurative foreign panels. The English heraldry is very diverse; some panels may be original to the church, but others may have been acquired from elsewhere and installed in the early nineteenth century at the same time as the foreign glass.

There are three panels in the east chancel window, I, of Norwich fifteenth-century work brought from another church or churches. It is known from an entry in Hampp’s notebook that Lady Beauchamp Proctor of Langley Hall acquired foreign panels from him and his partner William Stevenson is known to have traded in local glass; so it is probable that the latter provided the three Norwich pieces. ⁷

Of the foreign glass in the church the most important is in the east chancel window, although it is less fine than has been said. The two panels at the base of the window depicting Passion scenes are copies of glass from the cloister glazing in Steinfeld. When these were made is not known, but other examples of copies of the many panels of French and German glass imported in the early nineteenth century are known. The two larger scenes in the centre are problematic. That in 2–3a is much restored but is more likely to be German in origin, whereas the canopies over it and the adjacent scene are French. The Annunciation of the Birth of the Virgin Mary to Joachim is much more complete and would appear to be French (the language of the inscription), although comparative material is lacking.

Haward says that the donors of the foreign glass were Sir Thomas and Lady Beauchamp Proctor and that the glass was acquired, as has been said, from Hampp, having been imported in 1802–3. ⁸ The side windows he thinks were probably all installed by Yarington in 1823, although only sII retains his original settings. They contain the heraldic glass discussed above which may be original and also many other heraldic panels, some identified and some not, amongst which several are definitely or probably of foreign origin, as indicated in the catalogue. There are also a dozen mainly Flemish or Dutch roundels.

The glazing is completed by three of Yarington’s main-light figures of Evangelists now set in the west tower window, W, but originally, according to Haward, in the nave windows. In the tracery lights of the west window are four demi-figures of Apostles attributed to Robert Allen of Lowestoft, two more are in sV, 2a. 2c, although the backgrounds are different from those in the west window.

A comparison of Farrer’s account of the heraldry in the windows shows some rearrangement of the glass since his time. The three two-light windows, nII and sII in the chancel and nIII in the nave, remain almost exactly the same. ⁹ The four three-light windows in the nave, nIV, nV, sIII and sIV, have been substantially altered, although nV and sIV are not described by Farrer as they did not contain heraldry but figurative roundels. Farrer appears to have described the heraldry in the windows reading from top to bottom and from left to right, as his description of sII, the totally unaltered window, shows. From this it is clear that in nIV and sIII there was no heraldry in Farrer’s time in the central lights. Almost certainly, two of the four main-light figures of Evangelists by Yarington were in these lights, with the other two in those of nV and sIV. Thus the main changes in the rearrangement involved the removal of the Evangelist figures, with three being placed in the west window, and their replacement by other panels, some coming from the glass recorded by Farrer in the west window. These included one of the two sets of the two-part Walkyngton rebus, the panel now in sIII, 4b, and either that in 2b of that window or in nIV, 2b. Window nIV was almost totally rearranged, the vacant central light being filled with one of the rebus pairs and the shield from either 1a or 1c of that window and resulting gaps in the outer lights being filled by nineteenth-century heraldry from the west window in 3a and 3c and a Flemish roundel in 2a. Windows nV and sIV did not have heraldry in Farrer’s time and are today filled with local fifteenth-century text roundels, ¹⁰ Flemish and German seventeenth-century roundels and two of the demi-figures of Apostles by Robert Allen.

The glass was restored and rearranged by G. King & Son. ¹¹