Church of St Martin

Church of St Martin

Parish church of 1845, designed by H Stevens of Derby in a rich 14th-century Decorated style. The church is constructed of coursed rock-faced small stones with sandstone dressings, with Welsh slate roofs and stone coped gables. The nave and chancel have plain coped parapets to the aisles, continuous chamfered plinth, and coved eaves cornice with fleurons.

The plan comprises a west tower, aisled nave with south porch, and chancel with an octagonal north vestry. The west tower has three stages divided by chamfered string courses. It features angle buttresses and a polygonal stair turret crowned by an elaborate octagonal gableted, crocketed and pinnacled top. The buttresses rise to crocketed pinnacles. A low west doorway is topped by a three-light Decorated window with hoodmould on figure stops. Above this is a cusped lancet, with a similar lancet to the north and a clock face to the south. The tower has pairs of two-light bell-openings deeply set with reticulated tracery on each face, and a parapet with a cusped undulating pattern.

The north aisle has five buttresses and two three-light windows. The south aisle has two buttresses and three three-light windows: the centre one features reticulated tracery, while the outer ones have intersecting cusped tracery. The south aisle east window is three lights with reticulated tracery, and both aisles have matching two-light west windows. Four two-light clerestory windows to north and south have cusped ogee lights under flat heads. The chancel features a four-light east window with almost flamboyant tracery, and to the south are three two-light windows with mouchettes, with one similar window to the north. The chancel buttresses have gabled tops. The octagonal vestry has a pyramid roof, buttresses at the angles, and two two-light windows with reticulated tracery. The south porch is gabled with diagonal buttresses rising to gabled pinnacles. The doorway has two orders of shafts with foliage capitals and a hollow moulding with fleurons, with fleur-de-lys boot scrapers flanking the entrance.

Interior features include seats within blind arcades. The roofs have transverse arches on foliage corbels. The four-bay nave arcades have filleted shafts, moulded quatrefoil capitals, and arches with two wave mouldings; hoodmoulds rest on naturalistic foliage stops. The tall chancel arch has filleted trefoil responds with rich naturalistic capitals, and a moulded arch with fleurons in the hollow. The tower arch to the nave has three filleted shafts with moulded capitals. Within the tower is a stone rib vault with tiercerons. The nave has a king post roof with decorative cusping and arched braces on angel corbels, with two tiers of wind braces between the trusses. The chancel has an elaborate pointed wooden tunnel vault with nine transverse arches and two tiers of tracery motifs, all with painted decoration. The east window is shafted internally.

The chancel contains a mosaic and painted reredos depicting the Last Supper, continued as a dado, with a mosaic floor and mosaic frieze around the top of the chancel walls. Traceried stalls and a communion rail are present, along with wrought iron bracketed flower vases and stained glass in all the chancel windows. A marble and stone pulpit features openwork traceried panels. The north and south aisle windows have jambs cut away with detached shafts to carry the arch, and nook shafts at the aisle windows. Pews in the nave and aisles have tracery-panelled ends. Choir stalls at the west end of the nave have an openwork tracery front. A font at the west end of the south aisle has a circular bowl and base with bands of deeply carved foliage. A second font at the east end of the south aisle, much weathered, has a circular bowl on an octagonal base. A brass eagle lectern is also present.