It must formerly have been a place of much more consequence than it is at present, as that which is now called Cromer, was in the survey made by the Conqueror, accounted for under the town and lordship of Shipdon, which has long given way to the encroachments of the sea, together with the parish church dedicated to Saint Peter.
At low water there are many large masses of old wall to be seen, which appear evidently to have belonged to some of the buildings of the old town; and at very low tides a piece of building is discoverable, which the fishermen call the Church Rock, it being generally supposed to have been a part of the old church of Shipdon, and I think with some probability of truth; though others have doubted it, supposing it impossible but that the constant action of the sea for so many ages, must long ere this have dissolved all traces of it.
The present church, dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, was probably erected in the time of Henry the fourth. It is a very handsome pile, built with flint and freestone, consisting of a body and two aisles, covered with slate; the tower, which is square, with an embattled top, is an hundred and fifty-nine feet in height.
The entrance at the west end, is a beautiful specimen of gothic architecture, now in ruins; as is the porch on the north side and the chancel. The flinting in many parts of the building, for the beauty of its execution, is, perhaps, scarcely any where to be excelled.
The inside of the church, which is kept in good repair, is capable of containing a very great number of persons; it is also tolerably well pewed; but except the double row of arches which support the roof and divide the aisles, very little of what it has been remains; these, however, are of beautiful proportions, and the windows which were formerly of noble dimensions, and probably ornamented with that most elegant of church-decorations, painted glass, are now in a great measure closed up by the hands of the bricklayer.
Amongst the repairs done to the church is one, which though it may be, and certainly is, in some measure beneficial, yet, as it affects the beautiful proportions of the middle aisle, the eye of taste must regret—I mean the flat ceiling, which diminishes the height of the building by cutting off the roof. Height when duly proportioned proportioned certainly adds much to grandeur. In churches and in most gothic buildings the roof terminates in a point corresponding with the other parts, and by the exclusion of which the proportion and beauty of the building is in a great measure destroyed.
There is something too in the dark and sombre hue of the roofs of churches, when the timbers are left in their original state, that is very pleasing.
Monuments there are none of any consequence,—one or two of the Windham and Ditchell families are all the church contains; but a well-toned organ has been placed in the gallery within these few years, for which the church is peculiarly adapted.
At about a third part of the height of the staircase, which leads up the steeple, is a door which opens upon the lead of a small turret, communicating with the stairs, from which a few years since, a boy, by the name of Yaxley, fell into the church yard, between some timbers which were laid there for the repairs of the church, without receiving any other hurt than a few slight bruises, and is now on board a ship in his Majesty’s service.
Robert Bacon, a mariner, of Cromer, (says the History of Norfolk) found out Iceland, and is said to have taken the Prince of Scotland, James Stewart, sailing to France for education, in the time of Henry the fourth.