Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a building with Anglo-Saxon or early Norman origins, significantly altered across various periods. It is constructed primarily from magnesian limestone rubble laid in herringbone courses, with quoins, and has a low-pitched lead roof concealed by a parapet. The church comprises a west tower, a nave, a chancel, and a 19th-century vestry.

The west tower’s top stage was likely remodelled in the 13th century, featuring diagonal buttresses from that period, a round-headed lancet window on its south and west sides, two-centred arched belfry windows of two cusped lights with stone louvres, and an embattled parapet with 19th-century crocketed corner pinnacles.

The south side of the nave has a small two-centred arched doorway with a chamfered surround and hoodmould, sheltered by a gabled porch constructed from large, coursed blocks. The porch has a moulded two-centred arched outer doorway and a roof truss with a cambered tie-beam and a short octagonal crown post. Recessed two-centred arched windows with moulded surrounds and straight chamfered mullions flank each side of the porch and to the right is a four-centred arched three-light window of a similar design, followed by a 19th-century arched two-light window. The north side of the nave mirrors the south side with a similar doorway, above which are the remains of the right-hand half of a former round-headed opening. Patched masonry suggests two former windows, perhaps of the Perpendicular period, to its left, and at a higher level are three round-arched lancets, resembling those in the tower, but with a simple extrados with stops. A visible line of a former steeply-pitched roof is present on the east wall of the tower, with part of the gable remaining as a sloped parapet at the west end.

The chancel, constructed with herringbone masonry, is covered by a steeply-pitched slate roof. It has a small round-headed priest doorway with a chamfered surround, a 19th-century window to the left, a tall window of two lancet lights to the right, and a large recessed two-centred arched east window of four lights with intersecting tracery and a moulded surround.

Inside, the church features a purlin roof supported by cambered beams with arch bracing to short wall-posts, which are in turn supported by stone corbels. A round-headed arch defines the tower entrance, while the chancel arch is depressed in shape and double-chamfered, springing from moulded semi-octagonal corbels. A double piscina (or piscina and aumbry) is located in the south-east corner of the chancel, with one part in each wall, featuring a corner colonnette and moulded extrados. Fragments of a Saxon cross bearing a carved human figure are attached to the wall to the right of the chancel arch. A font dated 1663, and an elaborately carved font cover with foliated panels and ogee cresting are also present, along with a collection of wall monuments commemorating members of the Bland family of Kippax Park.