On the high ground overlooking the river Thurne, the tower is circular for three quarters of its height with an octagonal belfry. Both stages are of cobble flints and roughly coursed. The belfry has stone quoins with pointed lancet openings. The brick battlements are C15. The tower is circular internally to its full height, suggesting that the two stages were built together in C13.

The tower arch, just visible behind the font, is round headed. The church has a complex history. In his article in The Round Tower (June 2012), Stephen Hart suggests that there was a C11 church which was given a tower in C12. In the C13 the tower was replaced and the north door added: remnants of the earlier nave can be seen in the west nave wall. The church was extended in C14 with windows with decorated tracery and medieval bricks in the relieving arches over them. The porch is C16 or C17. The chancel was rebuilt in brick in C18. C15 font and brasses in the nave. Jack Sterry includes it in his 2007 book Round Tower Churches to the west, east and south of Norwich.  A guide is available at the church.

GRANT AWARD NEWS

St Peter’s, Repps cum Bastwick, was given a £3,000 grant in October 2019 to carry out a high-level investigation of the tower and also replace a lead-lined water spout. It was one of 17 in Norfolk on the “heritage at risk” register in October 2019.

The high-level inspection was carried out in May 2022 and a full report from the architect Iain Walker, of Spire, is awaited. (See story below)

St Peter & St Paul, Repps cum Bastwick, near Acle, which needs total repairs of £162,000, will use the latest grant to prevent further serious damage to the tower by fitting replacement water spouts.

Sally Mitchell, who has been a churchwarden for the past 20 years, said that the Society’s grant will help to pay for repairs which will throw water away from the tower.

However, having been twice turned down for national heritage grants, the medieval church needed to raise significant funds to complete the rest of the conservation works.