Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin is a parish church, largely dating to the 16th century, with significant restoration and a rebuilt chancel in 1884. It is constructed of ashlar, with a low-pitched nave roof hidden behind the parapet and a slate roof over the chancel. The church comprises a west tower, a three-bay nave with a north aisle and a south porch, and a two-bay chancel.

The west tower has two stages, with a belfry offset, clasping buttresses rising to the second stage and then continuing as diagonal buttresses. It has a crenellated parapet with continuous moulded coping. A pointed south door, possibly inserted later, is present. The west window is transomed, with three lights—trefoil-headed upper and lower lights, beneath a depressed triangular arch. The belfry openings are double trefoil-headed lights with a supermullion above, containing a central quatrefoil.

The south porch was built in 1834 and is gabled, with a pointed doorway rendered to appear as ashlar, and a Swithland slate roof. The nave has two three-light windows; one has a depressed triangular arch and a hollow-moulded surround, while the other features ogee lights and panel tracery beneath a square head and hood mould terminating in heads. There are three-light clerestory windows with square heads, and the parapet is crenellated like the tower’s, with a hollow-moulded string. The north side of the north aisle is blind, but the east window has two trefoil-headed lights beneath a four-centred head. The chancel features a three-light pointed east window with Perpendicular tracery, flanked by a pair of trefoil-headed lancets. Pointed side windows have cast iron tracery, and the south door is pointed with a moulded surround.

Inside, the nave arcade consists of double-chamfered pointed arches on octagonal columns with moulded capitals, and there is a double-chamfered and pointed tower arch. A high chancel arch has a chamfered surround, and a second four-centred arch leads from the north aisle to the chancel. The nave has a low-pitched roof with short, stubby king and queen posts, while the chancel has a ceiled roof with moulded tie beams supported on arched brackets springing from stone corbels. Fixtures include a 19th-century octagonal stone font, simple 19th-century bench pews with poppyheads, and a 1921 octagonal stone pulpit— tall and heavy, with quatrefoil panel sides. The spacious chancel contains 19th-century box pews along the north side, one with a fireplace, more box pews on the south side, and choir stalls with poppyheads. The east window is flanked by 19th-century commandment boards. Stained glass is present in the nave’s south-west window, made after 1913 in the style of Kempe and Co. A monument to Georgiana Countess Howe, who died in 1906, is a bronze tablet flanked by trumpeting angels, surmounted by a statuette of St. George beneath an open segmental pediment.