St Nicks Arts Centre : Join us on our journey!
St Nicholas Church in Swafield is entering a new chapter in its history by incorporating a year-round Arts and Community Centre serving North Norfolk. This strategy outlines how the modernisation of the church will create a sustainable, vibrant, and self-funding cultural venue that supports community life, the arts, and heritage conservation for at least the next century. At the same time the church will continue to be a place of worship, serving the people of Swafield.
Two public consultations were conducted with residents of local villages (including Swafield, Trunch, Bradfield, North Walsham, Knapton, Paston, Edingthorpe, Gimingham, Bacton, Trimingham & others).
The first consultation in Aug 2021 directly informed this project. The feedback was 100% positive about modernising the building (this has been the basis for our overall improvement project), increasing the number and variety of cultural and recreational activities, and expanding the building’s use by the local community.
Village residents expressed their support for maintaining St. Nicholas Church’s status as a place of worship with the ability to hold occasional services including weddings, funerals and baptisms (Since 2006 St. Nicholas has been a chapel of ease and regular services are held in St. Botolph’s in Trunch). It was proposed that religious services would be held primarily in the chancel, while the nave would be reserved for concerts, film screenings and other community events.
The most recent consultation (to a packed house) was on the 7th Nov 2025 with presentations by Kit Martin CBE, our architect Iain Walker from Spire, Dr Rev Sally Myers and Tim Payne (project lead for the St Nicks Arts Centre and PCC member). The evening highlighted the need to preserve heritage buildings, ensure that they are as eco-friendly & self-sustaining as possible and continuously adapt to the needs of the local population. This second consultation was extremely well received with all the attendees in favour of the plans and several people standing to express their thanks that the committee were focused on delivering cultural, community activities for the surrounding villages.
The first major milestone was removing the four medieval bells (earliest 1499) from the tower so that they could be restored and rehung. As the mountings to the bell frame were unsafe, the bells hadn’t been rung as a set in over 100 years, since then only one had been in use and that had to stop being used around 50 years ago.
The firm of Matthew Higby in Somerset removed the bells, they have been restored with no major problems and are due to return in late Feb.
This video shows Boris & Neil manually ringing the bells before they were removed.
You could also see the blog on the bells written by Daniel Stevens here.
The next step has been installing exterior lighting, which is essential for our evening events, a temporary outside toilet, upgrading the electricity supply to 3 phase and testing & installing infra red heaters.
St Nicks Arts Centre will serve as a model of how an historic rural church can evolve into a thriving arts and community hub without losing its sacred and heritage identity. This initiative ensures that St Nicholas remains at the heart of Swafield and the local area — not only as a spiritual space, but as a beacon for creativity, learning and community spirit for generations to come.
We would like to thank the following organisations who have generously help fund our restoration journey:
