Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This Anglican church at Crich has a medieval core dating to the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations made in the late 13th, 14th and early 15th centuries. A 20th-century vestry extension was added more recently. The building is constructed of ashlar and coursed rubble gritstone with quoins. The nave and aisles have low-pitched leaded roofs, while the chancel and south porch are covered with concrete tiles. The principal features are the square west tower with its recessed octagonal spire (mid to late 14th century), a nave with Perpendicular clerestory, north and south aisles, and a Perpendicular south porch. The chancel is Decorated in style with a vestry to its north wall.

The tower rises in three stages from a triple stepped moulded plinth, with angle buttresses featuring set-offs and terminating at the bell stage. Moulded string courses mark the divisions between stages. The belfry windows are two-light Decorated openings with moulded strings above, incorporating grotesque spouts to the corners. A deep unpierced parapet features wave moulding with trefoils and a moulded coping beneath. The octagonal spire has lucarnes at three levels. The west wall of the tower contains a 19th-century two-light window below a hoodmould with stops, and above this sits an empty niche below a clock face on the second stage.

The south aisle has a Perpendicular three-light flat-headed west window and two south wall windows with pointed arches below hoodmoulds with carved stops—one with intersecting tracery and one with reticulated tracery, both with moulded surrounds. Three-light windows with intersecting tracery light the east end. Shallow stepped buttresses with set-offs run between windows and to the east corner. The south porch is gabled and rises from a plain chamfered plinth. Its doorway has a double chamfer arch with a hoodmould. The side walls contain deeply recessed flat-headed two-light windows, and the interior has stone porch seats. A stepped arch leads to the south aisle doorway, incorporating hollow and quadrant mouldings rising from chamfered responds with simply moulded capitals below a hoodmould.

The four-bay nave features ashlar crenellated parapets above a continuous stringcourse. Perpendicular three-light clerestory windows with four-centred arched heads to the lights are deeply recessed; one two-light chamfered mullioned window is also present. A sanctus bellcote sits above the chancel arch. The three-bay Decorated chancel has full-height buttresses with set-offs delineating the bays, and east angle buttresses at the east end, all rising from an elaborate moulded plinth. Two three-light ogee-reticulated windows with deeply moulded surrounds light the south wall. Horizontal set-offs in the south wall masonry run above a pointed arched priests door to the central bay and are carried up as a hoodmould above pointed arched windows, continuing around the east wall and above a five-light ogee-reticulated east window. The vestry to the chancel has no windows but features diagonal buttresses with set-offs. The north aisle has a deeply recessed Perpendicular three-light east window and an angle buttress at the north-east corner. Three three-light Decorated pointed arched windows with flowing tracery and hoodmoulds with stops sit beneath a chamfered string course, with shallow buttresses with set-offs between windows, all rising from a shallow plinth. At the west end stands an ogee-headed tomb recess in the outer wall. A 20th-century flat-roofed vestry projects from the north, and a two-light Decorated window lights the north aisle west wall.

Interior features include a narrow, tall pointed tower arch with chamfered details and responds for three-bay nave arcades against the tower's east wall. The north arcade is lower and earlier than the south, with elementary chamfered square capitals and scalloped respond capitals supporting asymmetrical stepped unchamfered semicircular arches with a continuous hoodmould above. The south arcade has chamfered semicircular arches rising from moulded circular capitals, again with a continuous hoodmould. North aisle circular piers are more substantial than those to the south. Junctions between arcades and the later chancel are narrow half bays with stepped pointed chamfered arches—that to the north arcade is lower and runs into the chancel wall masonry, while that to the south aisle rises from a moulded impost matching those of the chancel arch, which is double-chamfered. Vestigial traces of a steeply pitched former nave roof are visible below the chancel arch. Within the chancel, a moulded eaves string course with carved corbels marks the location of an earlier chancel roof. Triple ogee-headed sub-cusped sedilia occupy the chancel south wall, together with a drain to a former piscina. A former squint to the chancel north wall now has a 17th-century carved cover, and above it sits a rare stone bible rest. A cusped-headed piscina is located in the south aisle side wall, and at its west end stands a Romanesque drum font with cable moulding.

A tomb recess in the north aisle wall contains a recumbent effigy believed to be of Sir William de Wakebridge (died 1369). The chancel south wall displays an alabaster table tomb with the figure of a knight in armour, commemorating Godfrey Beresford (died 1513). An alabaster table tomb to John Clay (died 1632 and two wives) occupies the chancel north wall. An alabaster slab set in the wall carries carved full-height portraits of German Pole (died 1588) and his wife. A classical wall monument to German Wheatcroft (died 1857) is mounted on the chancel north wall, with an inscription board nearby seemingly associated with the Clay monument. A 14th-century chancel screen with three-light side bays and cusped headings to the lights features a pierced panel to its base. Two benches with poppy heads stand at the end against the chancel arch wall.