Stockton Church

I was commissioned to take a photograph of this church to present as a framed A3 photograph:

Stockton Church serves a small rural community - services are held there once a month as the vicar has 5 churches in her guardianship. In the past though, it would have been a lot busier as it served the workers and landowners on the surrounding farms and estates that made up its congregation.

It is an old church: I am told that parts of it date back over 1000 years to Saxon times. Like many churches in Norfolk it has a round tower and, more unusually, a thatched roof whereas many churches in the UK have square towers and a tile or lead roof. It has recently been re-thatched - the person who commissioned me is a member of the Parochial Parish Council (who are responsible for the church) and organised the funding for the new roof.

I took many photos of this building and showed a shortlist to my contact. The photo shown above was the one that was chosen. The church was awkward to photograph as there are trees close to the front of the building. This was the best view possible as there was also a large tomb with a steel rail fence around it - you can just see part of it in the bottom left corner. I would also have liked to have moved further back but more trees blocked my way.

This second photo was taken a little further to the right - I wanted to omit the steel rails. This meant that I could not get to cross on the top of the roof closest to me as the trees stopped me going back any further but this did not matter too much as it was obscured by the leaves of the tree behind me. There are quite a few leaves showing in this image - there were even more that I was holding out of the way. I would have liked to have been able to prune some of this...

The final image below shows the rear, north, side of the church - this is better in many respects as the trees did not intrude so much although it does miss the entrance. I also looked at views from the other end of the building - I would return later in the day, but the views from that angle were quite poor.

I did ask for permission to sell these images as prints, but this been neither refused nor given. Should a print be of interest to you, please let me know and I will contact the authorities again.