Picture This: Aquatint etching from 1800s shows King’s Lynn’s St Nicholas’ Chapel with angel roof

In this week’s Picture This, Lynn Museum shares an etching from the early 1800s of a familiar chapel in the town…

This beautiful aquatint etching from 1808 depicts the stunning angel roof of St Nicholas’ Chapel.

The artist has used shading to show the vastness of the church’s interior.

If you look closely at the hammerbeam roof, you can make out carved wooden angels playing musical instruments or holding religious symbols.

There are nearly 170 remaining angel roofs in England and Wales, 70% of which are in East Anglia.

Their prevalence in our region could be explained by the fact that the architect who worked on the vast hammerbeam roof at Westminster Hall, London, later moved to Norfolk to work on a similar project.