Round towered churches are unusual. There are around 200 known, the majority of which are in the East Anglia region of eastern England.
Controversy rages over the age and provenance of these churches and why they are found mainly in Norfolk and Suffolk. Some say they are of Saxon origin, some of Conquest era. Speculation is rife as to why the round tower design. Some say that the local stone of the Norfolk area (flint and a form of sandstone) is difficult to cut and work corners and suits the curved wall design, but nobody knows for sure. These churches are old and records are very patchy.
I discovered these churches by accident while photographing a windmill in Norfolk. Across the flat fields I spied an unusual looking castle-like church. After photographing it, I researched the church and discovered it was one of a collection in the county. I had photographed it using my newly infrared converted camera, and the results piqued my interest sufficiently to inspire me to start a long term project to photograph all these quirky churches in infrared.
You can read about the conversion of my Fuji X-T1 to infrared here: https://whisperingcat.co.uk/wp/article/infrared/.
Locations of the churches
Exact counts vary (because some of the churches are ruins or remnants) but there are approximately 120 in Norfolk, 46 in Suffolk and 13 spotted around Essex, Cambridgeshire and Berkshire and 3 in Sussex. There may be some in Europe as well, but those are not part of my project.
You can see the locations of the ones I’m aware of on these Google My Maps:
I’ll be visiting more of these churches and building out the maps as I do so.
My infrared galleries
You can see the developing results of this project on my Round tower churches gallery page
Further information
There are a number of sources of information about the round tower churches.
Perhaps the most prominent is The Round Tower Churches Society: https://www.roundtowers.org.uk/ which provides a mine of information.
A brilliant book featuring line drawings and descriptions of the Norfolk churches is “The round tower churches of Norfolk” by Lyn Stilgoe and Dorothy Shreeve.
Author Jack Sterry has written a series of detailed day tours to the Norfolk churches with pictures, descriptions, locations and suggested routes called “Round tower churches hidden treasures“. I have the North Norfolk tour guide and I shall be looking for copies of the other guides. Be warned I did come across one or two errors in my copy!
You can find links to more information on these fascinating churches on the Round Tower Churches Society website linked above.
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