St Michael

This was the fortress of the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, a wealthy and influential family at the time of Henry VIII.

The great chancel of the Perpendicular church, larger than the nave, was built by the 3rd duke in 1550 as a family mausoleum. Howard remains from before the Reformation had to be moved from Thetford Priory when it was dissolved, and here they were joined by later burials with increasingly extravagant tombs such as that of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. He was beheaded, aged 30, in 1547 but his ornately gilded tomb dates from 1614.

The 12th century chancel arch remains as evidence of an earlier church, as does a 14th century wall painting of the Trinity on the northern arcade. The nave roof above it, probably dating from the 1520s, is a masterpiece of carpentry, with the hammerbeams concealed behind traceried timber vaulting.

A masterpiece of a different kind is the ornate organ built in 1674 by Thomas Thamar and still in use. Its case may be older, and is a rare survivor of the destruction of such organs ordered by Cromwell in the English Civil War.