Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Church. The building dates from the 14th century with 16th-century additions. The tower was constructed in 1742–4 by John Rowson. The chancel and vestry underwent restoration and remodelling in 1888 by Sir Arthur William Blomfield. The structure is built of sandstone with slate and lead roofs.

The plan comprises a tower at the west end, a nave with side aisles, a chancel with side chapels, and a vestry.

The tower rises in three diminishing stages. The south front features a moulded plinth and plain ashlar walling that rises to the height of the nave ridge, with two slit windows to the left side. A heavy cyma-moulded string course is surmounted by a circular clock dial above a band. Above this is a Venetian bell opening with louvres and an impost band. The parapet ramps up at the corners with vases at the corners and centre. The north front is identical except for the absence of slit windows and a bulls-eye window in place of the clock dial. The west front is similar but features a pedimented doorcase with keystone and an arched window above it with two arched lights and a central oculus at the apex, with a hood mould above.

The south front of the nave comprises four bays with stone mullioned and transomed Perpendicular windows of three by two lights in rectangular chamfered surrounds. Buttresses between the bays have offsets. Three gabled timber dormers rise above, each containing three cusped lights. The chancel has a left-hand window of four arched lights above a priests' door. To the right is a five by two light Perpendicular window similar to those in the nave. A slightly projecting chantry chapel to the right is flanked by setback buttresses to the left and two setback buttresses to the right-hand corner, all with offsets and surmounted by crocketed pinnacles. Two early 19th-century Perpendicular windows with hood moulds are present.

The east front presents a blank wall to the east of the south-east chantry chapel, which has a shallow angled gable with a cross at the apex and crocketed pinnacles to offset buttresses. A 19th-century decorated window lights the east end of the chancel, with a steeper gable above and a cross at the apex. A diagonal buttress to the north-east corner has an arched door and a three-light Perpendicular window to its far left. A swallow-pitched gable tops the vestry, with a cross at the apex. A slightly projecting chantry chapel is lit by a three-light Perpendicular window similar to those on the south front. An octagonal battlemented chimney stands to the left-hand gable.

The north side shows four bays of nave with three bays of clerestory. The clerestory here is walled with a separate aisle roof rather than having dormer clerestory windows. Three three-light Perpendicular windows light the aisle, with a doorway to the right featuring head moulding and hood mould. The clerestory windows are three-light in Perpendicular format. An octagonal battlemented chimney stands to the right.

Interior

The four-bay nave has round Early English piers to the north arcade with roll-moulded bases and capitals and double chamfering to arches, the outer chamfering cusped. The south arcade has octagonal columns, taller than those on the north side, with capitals of stepped profile and double-chamfered arches that are unstopped. A 19th-century king-post roof with brattished ties spans the nave. The chancel comprises four bays with octagonal piers to both sides.

Monuments include a 13th-century representation of a recumbent knight. A wall monument to Samuel Egerton by John Bacon (1792) is executed in white and variegated grey marble. It features a central catafalque with a sarcophagus surmounted by a stunted obelisk topped with a flaming two-handled lamp. High-relief figures of Hope with an anchor and Patience holding a book and standing on a thorny branch flank the composition; the carving is of excellent quality. A free-standing monument to Charlotte Lucy Beatrix Egerton by Richard Westmacott Junior (1845) shows a recumbent female figure on a bed with a winged angel kneeling over her, his hand outstretched in blessing.