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Aethelmaer or Aylmer, Bishop of Elmham, who was Lord of the Manor (Tornedis in the Domesday Book, 1085/6) began the building of the present stone church in 1047.

It is likely that an earlier wooden church preceded this one, as the Bishopric of Elmham began with Bishop Beaduwine in 673AD. (The foundations and some of the ruins of the Saxon Cathedral can be visited at North Elmham on the Thornage to Dereham road).

The Bishopric moved to Thetford after Aethelmaer in 1070 and to Norwich in 1091 with Bishop Herbert de Losinga.

The northwest corner of the nave of this part-11th century church is typical of the Saxon period, while the two windows with semi-circular arches at the top, deeply splayed on the inside, are Norman.

The Tower dates from 13th Century and is of the Early English period with no buttresses and with a very narrow turret staircase in the northwest corner. Full of rarities, the church was enlarged and restored, mainly in the 13th Century. At this point the village seems to have been called Thorndych.

The rarities in this church are: Rarity No 1: Medieval fireplace

A medieval fireplace and flue in the Tower, which was used to bake communion wafers for the services and possibly for warming the church, can be seen at the south west side of the tower - now converted into a cupboard.

Rarity No 2: The Bell

One remaining bell in the tower, from an unknown foundry, is of an early date. This bell is inscribed “Ave Maria Gr’a Plena d’us Tecum, and is mentioned in the 1552 inventory of the church, where it is also recorded that two others were sold (why?) by Sir William Butts. In the adjoining parish of Hunworth, there is a piece of land known by 1709 as “Bell Acre”.

Tradition has it that it was left to Thornage (which had then progressed through Thonagg in 1385 to its modern spelling) by an unknown donor who found his way home when lost in a snowstorm, by the sound of the Thornage bell. Rent from this land in about 1901 was 30 shillings and in 2001 was £86. The bell tower is kept locked as access is steep narrow and difficult.

Rarity No 3: Fine Butts Tomb

It is clear that the Butes/Butts family were closely involved with All Saints Church as early as the mid 15th Century when John and Margaret who died in 1477, were benefactors, although not then “Lords of the Manor”. However the canopied table tomb inside the chancel on the south side, sadly robbed of its effigies and dating from 1583, is the tomb of their descendent Sir William Butts, High Sheriff of Norfolk & Suffolk, and his wife Jane, nee Bures – identified by the heraldry.

In 1536, at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the establishment of the Church of England, the Manor (estate) and the Avowedson (right to appoint the parish priest) passed to the Crown, in the person of King Henry VIII. To celebrate the safe birth of Prince Edward (later Edward VI) his only son, to his third queen Jane Seymour, in 1537, King Henry granted the Manor of Thornage to Sir William Butts MD who was his chief physician and friend.

Although some authorities suggest that there were two William Butts, all activities of the owner of the tomb, on behalf of the King seem to have occurred from as early as 1528, so that his death in 1545 seems reasonable, especially as the heraldry would only have supported that particular couple.

Sir William Butts was employed on various errands for King Henry VIII, visiting Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle on the occasion of an outbreak of plague in 1528, while the King was still married to Catherine of Aragon. He was also involved in asserting that the king was not impotent , when in 1540 he failed to consummate his marriage to the unattractive Anne of Cleves. Smollett, in his History of England of 1759 stated that Henry “swore they had brought him a Flanders mare” very different from the painting of Anne brought to the original diplomatic negotiations.

Rarity No 4: Painted incised memorial

An incised slab against the tower wall is a rare type of memorial, an alternative to a floor brass. This is Anne Heigham nee Waldegrave, who had three sons and five daughters, depicted at her prayer desk with her heraldry above.  She died in 1590 aged 84. 

Rarity No 5: Memorial to the Huguenot vicar

An interesting floor slab near the organ is a memorial to a Huguenot exile, the Reverend Francis (Francois?) Fesquet who “left his native country for the sake of the true Protestant religion” and apparently married a local lady. He became Rector of Thornage, where he lived and worked for 34 years up to his death in 1734 at the age of 86. After the revocation of the Treaty of Nantes in 1685, many Hugenots came to Norwich in particular, to the great advantage of the local commerce.

Rarity No 6: The Organ

A very fine Chamber Organ, built by Thomas Elliott in 1812 was sold to the rector Revd. Joseph Kaye in 1897 for £14, a year before the Victorian restoration and refurbishment of the church began. It seemed that the church had fallen into some degree of disrepair during “the Georgian days of deadened worship” and the Victorians removed “plentiful plaster and copious whitewash”, revealing the “quaint lettering” on the right, above the altar, the piscina and sedelia as well as the already mentioned Norman windows. “The cumbersome gallery, sheep pen pews, sham ceiling and inadequate altar” were also removed, leaving the very simple church we have today.

Rarity No. 6 – The Vestry

The Vestry, to the south of the tower, was built as a War Memorial to the “many men” of Thornage who died in the “Great War” of 1914-18. Their names can be seen on the Memorial on the north wall of the Nave.

Other places of interest in Thornage Village

Thornage Hall – with its big square dovecote – is one of the oldest continuously inhabited halls in the country. This building is originally a 15th century manor house and grange (farm) of the Bishops of Norwich. James Goldwell, Bishop of Norwich (1472-99) rebuilt the hall and , carved above one of the windows can be seen the shell emblem of Saint James and a well, representing the bishop’s name. These emblems also can be seen in Norwich Cathedral. It is recorded that Bishop Goldwell used Thornage as his chapel and may have caused some restructuring and enlargement, although most of this was done in about 13th Century. Thornage Hall now belongs to the Camphill Village Community and cannot be visited.

Many of the houses in the village, with its winding single “Street” are “listed” – that is to say preserved as of historical interest. Ornamental and reinforcing ironwork attached to the walls of various houses and cottages are evidence of its 19th Century foundry, dealing mainly with the manufacture and repair of agricultural instruments.

In 1863, when Charles John Brereton was rector, there is evidence of a lively local commercial life, with iron foundries, a blacksmith, shopkeepers, a miller and lime burner, shoe maker, baker and butcher, a tailor, bricklayer, carpenters and of course a pub “Black Boys” and a population of about 350 with letters arriving by “foot messenger” at 6.30 am. Today we have none of these, but our numerically smaller parish and our ancient church are in good heart and ready to welcome visitors.