Church Of St Martin

The Church of St Martin is a parish church located on Church Lane in Desford. It dates from the late 13th century and 14th century, with restorations and extensions carried out in 1884 by Stockdale Harrison. The building is constructed from randomly coursed Mount Sorrel rubble with ashlar dressings and features slate roofs adorned with decorative tile ridges.

The church includes a western tower and spire, a nave, a south aisle, a porch, and a chancel with a 19th-century vestry on the north side. The three-stage tower has diagonal buttresses, chamfered string courses, and an embattled parapet. The spire is set back and octagonal, crocketed, and features two sets of lucarnes facing the principal directions. On the west wall of the tower, there is a two-light 14th-century window with cusped heads in a pointed moulded surround and a hood mould. The belfry stage has similar smaller windows on each side.

The north side of the nave has lancet windows, and an additional lancet window has been reset in the north wall of the vestry. The east windows of the chancel and south aisle, dating from the 19th century, consist of five lights with intersecting tracery. The south porch is also from the 19th century and features a pointed three-light west window in the south aisle with intersecting tracery.

Inside, the church has a late 13th-century south nave arcade with short octagonal piers on high square bases, moulded octagonal capitals (one decorated with nail head), and double chamfered arches. The chancel arch and roofs are from the 19th century. There are plain three-arched sedilia and a piscina in the south wall of the chancel. A low tomb or easter sepulchre is set in an arched recess in the north wall, featuring a slight ogee crown and an aumbry to the east. The font is a possible 11th-century circular bowl with one band of beads, set on a 19th-century base. A notable monument within the church is a slate mural tablet commemorating Elizabeth Muxloe, who died in 1723, carved in the shape of an open book with an inscription below an angel's head with spread wings.