It’s a defaced statue. But this is exciting, it was created in 1460s but was destroyed in the Reformation when the face was smashed up. It’s difficult to understate how evil the Catholic church had become, corrupt to the core and preying on the poorest in society, but it must have been devastating to communities to see their religious icons destroyed by the mob.
This is a time where I can mention the idiot that was Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor, who recommended in his report that several medieval churches in Norwich should be demolished. Fortunately, his report was so idiotic and simplistic that it galvanised a community against him, and the decision was not to demolish several city centre churches. That’s certainly a reputation to leave, that your work was so incompetent that upset enough people to change the situation and save these churches, with the City Corporation being forward thinking and brave in their offer to take on the leases.
One of the churches that he wanted to demolish was St. Laurence’s Church on St. Benedict’s Street, which is also where this defaced statue was found discarded in the porch. There’s enough of it remaining for it to be identified as a sculpture of St. Christopher carrying Jesus Christ across a river.
Here’s AI’s attempt at completing the statue once again. It’s quite an impressive restoration to be fair.