11th Century
From the road, if you look high under the eaves, close by the north porch, you will see two small round windows. They are in the oldest part of the church building. Small round, double splayed windows are typically Saxon. Not that it proves this part of the church was built before the Norman Conquest. Old fashioned ways persisted for a time and these windows were just the thing if you had no glass. Glass was hard to come by. Big windows at eye level don’t keep out the rain and wind! Did you know that the modern word windows comes from the Middle English wind eye? Coltishall church has two of them! Best seen from the road just east of the north porch.
The Glories that were Rome
To the left of the north porch and the Saxon windows, you will see a nearly vertical line of narrow bricks. They mark the east corner of the original flint church. These were made sometime before the 4th century. Reusing brick from old Roman ruins was at once practical, they are so much to easy to use on corners than flint, and significant, linking this new stone church to the glories of Rome.
