Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Originally dedicated to St Gregory, this parish church at Staindrop was collegiate from the early 15th century until around 1544. The building incorporates fabric from before the Norman Conquest, with early 12th-century arcades. The main body of the church was enlarged substantially over subsequent centuries: aisles, tower and chancel were added in the 12th century; transepts were built and the nave lengthened in the 13th century, with a west tower added and the chancel extended at that time; a north vestry was added later. The 14th century saw alterations to the aisles (following a 1343 licence granted to Ralph Neville for three chantries) and the addition of a porch. An early 15th-century clerestory and the top stage of the tower date from this period. A major restoration around 1849, including renewal of many windows, was carried out by Cory.

The church is constructed principally of sandstone rubble, some of it very coarse, with dressed stone blocks used for the south aisle and ashlar dressings to plinth, quoins and other features. The roof is not visible, though the stone-flagged porch roof can be seen. The plan consists of a four-bay nave with a west tower and clasping aisles, a south porch, a north transept, a small room clasping the east corner of the south aisle, and a three-bay chancel with a north vestry at the east end.

The south porch is steeply gabled with a wide two-centred chamfered arch, beneath which sits a sundial dating from around 1900 in the gable peak; small blocked lights appear in the returns. Nineteenth-century Decorated tracery features prominently: three-light windows in the south aisle, two-light in the north aisle, three-light in the transept east windows, and a large five-light window to the east. The north door has a two-centred arch with an eroded animal finial, possibly a lion, beneath a short column. The west window of the south aisle comprises stepped lancets with plate tracery contained in a two-centred surround. The north aisle has a west cusped three-light window with a beakhead-stopped dripmould, and clerestory windows contain three cusped lights. The vestry displays elaborately cusped two-light windows with carved spandrels on the ground floor and lancets above, together with a Perpendicular three-light east window. The tower rises in three stages, with a two-centred-arched door in a west stair turret, a lancet in the high first stage, paired lancets in the short second stage, and renewed Y-tracery in the corbelled-out belfry stage. Clasping buttresses occur at the corners; parapets carry chamfered coping except for a roll-moulded south aisle parapet and the embattled tower parapet. The first chancel buttress obscures a blocked priest's door, and gargoyles appear on the south elevation.

The porch interior features stone benches to the sides and a wide-chamfered round-headed surround to renewed double doors, with a stone vault springing from three wide ribs. The nave, tower and north aisle are constructed of rubble, the south aisle of coursed blocks, and the chancel of painted plaster with ashlar dressings. The roof of the nave has cambered beams with central pendants rising from a low ridge and single purlins; a horizontal brace appears in the north-east corner. The chancel roof was renewed in a similar style and features painted decoration and a frieze. Double-chamfered round-arched nave arcades rest upon cylindrical piers with moulded bases and varied 12th-century capitals for the three eastern bays. Drip strings carry one head stop on the north and nutmeg decoration on the south; keeled end pilasters appear on some piers. The fourth bay has square piers, with fillets on the pilasters supporting a double-chamfered round arch; pyramid stops terminate the outer chamfers, and similarly chamfered two-centred arches open to the tower. One small round-headed pre-Conquest opening, deeply splayed, is interrupted by the first pier and springs from the south side; an opposite blocked opening of the same shape exists. A blocked round-headed door appears in the west wall of the tower, with two-centred and corbelled heads marking further blocked doors above. A line marking an earlier steeply pitched roof is indicated by strings. The chancel is spanned by a thin, wide two-centred arch, awkwardly set upon an impost string, with damaged moulded capitals and pilasters carrying fillets; the west face displays a fleur-de-lys finial on a dog-tooth dripmould. The vestry door has a two-centred head with two hollow chamfers beneath a dripmould. A small cusped triple-light opening and a squint with a re-used grave cover positioned high above lead to the upper vestry, possibly a priest's chamber.

The south side features triple sedilia with moulded shafts and cusped heads, all with fillets, displaying vigorous foliage capitals, one corbel, and one head corbel. A small blocked two-light opening on the north may have been an aumbry. Some windows have rere arches; lancet windows display trefoil inner heads.

The north transept contains two aumbries and two piscinae, one cusped and one cusped and pierced, along with a blocked and mutilated two-centred opening to the north pier of the chancel arch. An aumbry appears in the north wall of the north aisle below a large blocked square. The south aisle contains a cusped east piscina; the possible location of an aumbry is obscured by fittings. The entrance to the south-east room has a two-centred arch with a stone vault springing from two closely set ribs, and contains triple sedilia.

The monuments within the church are significant. A tomb recess in the south aisle holds a 13th-century effigy of a lady and young boy, and a 14th-century monument to Euphemia de Clavering beneath a large elaborate crocketed gable. Behind 19th-century iron railings at the west stand two major alabaster and wooden chests: the first a large decorated wooden chest with effigies of Henry Neville (died 1560) and his second and third wives, created by John Tarbotons, and the second a large traceried alabaster chest with effigies of Ralph Neville (died 1425) and his two wives. At the north-west, a low-relief effigy of Henry Vane (died 1792) shows Raby Castle as restored by him, with his wife Margaret in a Gothic surround and his daughter-in-law Katharine (died 1800 and 1807); all three are carved in white marble by Robert Cocke. Above the south door stands a marble bust by Nollekens to John Lee, Attorney General (died 1793), and his wife Mary (died 1813).

The glazing is largely 19th-century, though a small medieval roundel survives in the vestry. The furnishings include a Jacobean altar table; 15th-century collegiate choir stalls with poppyheads and Tudor roses on the arms and misericords, together with blind traceried backs; and a pre-Reformation screen with slender moulded uprights and cusped depressed ogee arches. An octagonal 14th-century font with slightly concave faces displays shields on each side of the bowl; the shield on the east quarters the arms of Neville with Clifford and another heraldic device, the remainder being blank.