Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church in Perpendicular style, dating from the 15th century but retaining fragments from the late 14th century. Built in ashlar with lead roofs.

The church has a cruciform plan with a crossing tower and transepts. The chancel is aisleless but has a vestry and chapter house to the north and a chapel to the south. The nave is aisled with a single-storey choir vestry to the north and a porch to the south.

Exterior features include a plinth, sill band, buttresses, crenellation and corner pinnacles throughout. The chancel spans 4 bays and has a 9-light east window with 3 transoms. To the north are two 4-light windows with double transoms, and to the south a similar window. The vestry has an ogee gable with finial and a 4-light traceried window. The chapter house, a single-storey addition of 1890 by G.F. Bodley, has 4 flat-headed windows. The south chapel, added 1912-1913 by Temple Moore and spanning 4 bays, has 4-light windows with double transoms to the east and south, with a smaller 2-light window to the south-west, and an octagonal stair turret with spire to the south-west.

The crossing tower has three stages with angle buttresses, string courses and 8 pinnacles. The second stage has a 4-light opening on each side with double transoms, with clocks below to east and west. The bell stage has pairs of 2-light openings with transoms on each side, flanked by identical blanks. The north and south transepts each have 4 bays with panelled crenellation and huge segment-arched gable windows of 12 lights, divided by major mullions and 3 transoms. Pointed-arched side windows appear on 2 storeys with 4 lights and major mullions. The west sides have octagonal stair turrets with spires; the south one is dated 1811.

The nave clerestory has 12 windows with tracery of 4 lights on each side. The north aisle has 11 similar larger windows with plainer tracery. The south aisle has 11 windows of 3 lights with intersecting tracery and transoms. Both aisles have a 2-light window to the east. The south porch, restored in 1983, has a shallow gable with blind tracery, angle and side buttresses, and a heavily cusped doorway with double shafts. Inside the porch is a stone vault with moulded ribs, a triangular-arched doorway flanked by niches, and voussoirs with large square fleurons. The doors and tympanum are of sculpted bronze, dated 1904, by Henry Wilson.

The west end has a shallow gabled porch flanked by buttresses, above which is a 12-light window similar to the east end (with several lower lights blocked). Either side has two 4-light windows with a pointed-arched door below.

The interior is lined with rectangular stone panelling throughout, featuring roll-moulded frames. The chancel has a truss roof with arch braces on angle corbels. A south arcade of 1912 comprises 3 bays with screens. A canopied wooden screen and reredos in Decorated style, dated 1885, was created by Bodley & Garner. The vestry features early 18th-century panelling and a fireplace with modillion cornice and scalloped half-dome over the north window. The chapter house has panelling, a cross-beam ceiling and an ashlar corner doorway. The south chapel contains a piscina and triple sedilia, with fragments of 15th-century stained glass in the windows.

The crossing has composite piers and a fan vault with moulded arches without shafts. The north and south transepts have canopied tomb niches in the gable ends: that to the south dates from the early 15th century, whilst that to the north dates from around 1473 and was created by Thomas Thurland. The aisles have moulded eastern arches and west doors flanked by single windows. The north door has been restored with an ogee gable and flanking piers; the south door is roll-moulded.

The nave arcades span 6 bays with slender lozenge-section piers without capitals and simple arches with roll hood moulds. The roof is mainly 19th-century king post with traceried spandrels and arch braces on angel corbels.

The stained glass includes major 19th-century work by Hardman (1865-1878), Heaton, Butler & Bayne (1867), Clayton & Bell (1873-1891), Ward & Hughes (1868), Burlison & Grylls (1882 and 1903), and Kempe (1895-1905).

Fittings include a 15th-century octagonal traceried panelled font, an octagonal skeleton pulpit and brass eagle lectern (both 19th-century), traceried panelled stalls of 1872 by Scott, a freestanding lion and unicorn of around 1710, and a bracket clock in the north aisle of around 1800.

Memorials include a 14th-century alabaster effigy, an effigy in a niche in the south transept dating from around 1413 commemorating John Samon, an alabaster tomb chest in a niche in the north transept of around 1414 to John de Tannesley (with a resited mid-14th-century slab and late 15th-century figure), notable wall monuments of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and many wall tablets from the late 18th to mid-19th centuries.

The south aisle was restored and the crossing vault replaced circa 1818-1820 by William Stretton. A rainwater head is dated 1812. The west end was rebuilt in facsimile, and clerestory windows were renewed between 1845-1853 by W.B. Moffatt. The crossing piers were restored 1843-1848 by Scott & Moffatt. The chancel was reroofed in 1872 by Scott. A choir vestry was added to the north-west in 1940. Restoration and cleaning of the exterior stonework took place in 1992-1993.