Oulton Chapel Heritage Open Days
Sun, 10 Sept
|Norwich
Open for Heritage Open Days - no booking required, just come along.
Time & Location
10 Sept 2023, 10:00 – 16:00
Norwich, Hall Rd, Norwich NR11 6NU, UK
About the event
Come and visit this beautiful site and enjoy tours, tea and cakes from the Friends of Oulton Chapel.
Hidden away in the quiet lanes of the north Norfolk countryside, Oulton Chapel remains relatively unknown. This Grade II* listed chapel, owned by Historic Norfolk, is located in a peaceful and tranquil setting off Hall Road, signposted from the B1354 Blickling Road. The chapel opened as a non-conformist place of worship in April 1731. It is virtually unchanged from how it would have originally looked. The building is built of red brick with a double-shaped gable at each end in the Flemish style fashionable in the late 17th century. Inside the ground floor seating and pulpit belong to a nineteenth-century re-furnishing, but the original box pews survive in the upper gallery. Oulton Chapel fell into disuse in the 1960s and its condition deteriorated. Limited emergency repairs were carried out in 1984 and in 1990 Norfolk Historic Buildings Trust (now trading as Historic Norfolk) purchased the Chapel and surrounding land. Repairs to the Chapel were completed in 1991, with grants from English Heritage and Broadland District Council, and included the conversion of the rear vestry into a small meeting room with a kitchen and toilets. Also on the Oulton Chapel site is a coach house, which originally housed the Minister’s pony and trap, and the Manse (completed in 1784), which is privately occupied. Today the Chapel is available to hire for meetings and other events and part of the site is now a natural burial ground.