Church Of St Mungo

The Church of St Mungo is a parish church dating back to the 13th century. The aisles were rebuilt in 1763 by Robert and William Newton, the chancel was rebuilt between 1863 and 1864 by Anthony Salvin, and the nave, aisles, and porch were restored and re-fenestrated between 1875 and 1877 by R.J. Johnson. The church is constructed from squared and dressed sandstone with graduated green slate roofs, and is largely Early English in style with 19th-century alterations executed in the same style.

The 4-bay nave features a 5-light plate-tracery west window flanked by 13th-century buttresses, a gabled west bellcote with twin openings, and a steep roof. Buttressed aisles include fragments of a chamfered plinth dating back to the 13th century, with grouped lancet windows and low pent roofs. A pointed doorway on the north aisle dates from 1877. The 3-bay chancel incorporates medieval fabric in the lower part of the north wall and the western part of the south wall. It has restored buttresses with chamfered bases and gablets, 4 lancets, a re-cut Priest’s door, a 2-light low-side window with stepped sill strings and a continuous hoodmould on the south, and 2 lancets on the north. A steeply-pitched roof covers the angle-buttressed east end with 3 stepped lancets. A tall, gabled porch has an elaborate pointed doorway of three orders with colonnettes and a steep roof.

Inside, the 3 eastern bays of the nave slope down to the chancel. The nave arcade, likely reconstructed around 1877, comprises 4 pointed arches with 2 chamfered orders, supported by octagonal piers with moulded bases and hollow-chamfered capitals. A similar chancel arch was partly rebuilt in 1877. Aisle windows feature splayed rear arches on colonnettes. A restored trefoil-headed double piscina is located on the south chancel wall.

The church contains a range of fittings, monuments, and stained glass. These include an early 18th-century vase-shaped stone font and a late 19th-century octagonal stone font in the nave, fragments of a monument to the Reverend Cuthbert Ridley who died in 1637 (depicting 3 kneeling figures and a recumbent child) at the east end of the south aisle, an 1854 Allgood monument with a carved angel by M. Noble on the north aisle wall, and an aedicular monument to the Reverend Major Allgood who died in 1696 on the north chancel wall. Several worn 17th- and 18th-century floor monuments are in the chancel. Carved stone fragments are also present, including part of a Saxon cross shaft set into the inner walls of the porch. The 1877 east window and several aisle windows were designed by C.E. Kempe.