Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a church built between 1858 and 1860 by W.H. Brakspear. It is constructed of ashlar with a slate roof and comprises a nave, aisles, a west tower, north and south porches, transepts, a chancel, a vestry, and the Stamford Chapel. The five-bay aisles have transomed, five-light, 16th-century-style square-headed windows with weathered buttresses and crocketed pinnacles (missing on the north side), castellations and a porch in the western bay. The clerestory features three-light traceried square-headed openings and castellations. The four-stage west tower has diagonal buttresses, crocketed pinnacles, ornate clock faces, four-light belfry openings, gargoyles, an enriched band, and castellations. The transepts and three-bay chancel exhibit set-back buttresses, five-light windows, and bold corner pinnacles, with a similar overall treatment.

Inside, the nave arcade features double-chamfered octagonal columns with moulded capitals. A double-chamfered chancel arch and tower arch are present, accompanied by a traceried screen and a bell ringers' gallery. The wide aisles retain early 16th-century roofs from a predecessor church, incorporating elaborate gilded and painted bosses. The nave roof is an ornate hammer beam construction, while the chancel and transepts have arch-braced trusses elaborately painted in the chancel. Notable monuments include a 14th-century Baguley monument, a 17th-century Brereton monument with two recumbent effigies and a canopy, and monuments to Henry Booth and Mary Warrington (1734 by Carpenter), and a Booth monument (1735 by Carpenter) with a sarcophagus, obelisk, cherub medallions, and a segmental pediment on Ionic columns. A Neo-Wren style wall plaque commemorating the Ninth Earl of Stamford is also present, alongside other 17th, 18th, and 19th-century wall monuments. Fragments of 8th, 10th, and 14th-century sculpture are incorporated. Stained glass is by Kempe and Clutterbuck, and stalls and the pulpit are by Temple Moore, dating circa 1910.