St Cecilia - A Brief Guide to the church

On both the north and south walls of the church it's easy to see a clear join, where the masonry seems to have been finished off. Oddly, these joins aren't parallel, and on the south side, the bricks at the join seem to be curving to form an arch over a door that no longer exists. The roof seems to have been raised when the east end of the church was rebuilt.Still outside, on the north side of the church are two large headstops with ugly faces. At the northeast corner of the church is a shield, carved with the arms of the Freke family, landowners in Bilney in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The shield is dated 1706, and surmounted by a skull with crossed bones on either side. lt may have been the one Elizabeth Freke paid for to commemorate her husband, Percy, who died that year. The shield was originally for his vault, which had been built under the chancel, and may have been placed here when the chancel was demolished.Elizabeth herself died in London in 1714, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Eventually the male line of the family died out, and the manor was sold in 1750 to Francis Dalton of Swaffham. Dalton memorial ledger slabs can be seen just in front of the altar.Inside, the font is Perpendicular, decorated with quatrefoils inside circles. Alternate quatrefoils have a rose in the centre. Over the blocked up Early English north door hangs a Hanoverian coat of arms, dating from the very early nineteenth century.The pine pews and pulpit were fitted in 1881 , but the design of the pulpit harks back to the combined reading desk and pulpit of the eighteenth century. Why did the carpenter look backwards? Another surprise is the bier, which is unusual not only in dating back to the early eighteenth century, but also being without wheels. There are handles at the front and back for the bearers, and folding ones at the sides.In the upper chamber of the tower are interesting pieces of reused stone , probably all 12th. century; two round sections that may have been part of a pilaster; a "life belt" that could have been a small round window, and a head, probably of a monk as he seems to have a tonsure.

In the winter of 1976 part of the tower battlements collapsed during a gale, and the church was closed as being unsafe. No one had the money to repair the tower, and no one knew what to do with the church either. It was even offered to a local farmer as a grain store! Plans were made to demolish the tower and make the church redundant, while the contents were to be given to other churches. Fortunately, a Mileham farmer, Richard Butler-Stoney, steadfastly insisted that the Norfolk Churches Trust should repair the tower and take on the responsibility for the church. The Trust raised the money somehow, assisted by a grant from English Heritage. Today, the church is redundant, but services take place three times a year.