Church Of St Denys

The Church of St Denys is a parish church dating back to the early 14th century, with significant additions and alterations made throughout its history. The original fabric includes the nave, south aisle, and west tower from the 13th century, a north aisle from the early 14th century, and a chancel also from the mid 14th century. Further work was undertaken in the 15th century, and substantial restorations occurred in 1883 and 1923. The church is constructed of ironstone with limestone dressings and lead roofs.

The west tower is of three stages, featuring a three-light intersecting window with trefoil motifs. Narrow vertical slits provide lighting to the ringing chamber. Diagonal buttresses rise to below the 15th-century belfry stage, which has two-light Perpendicular windows with lozenge tracery. The tower is topped with a crenellated parapet featuring a frieze of lozenges and quatrefoils and four corner pinnacles. The south aisle has a three-light window with a circular vesica containing trefoil motifs, and a gabled porch with a moulded entrance arch. Further windows along the south side include a three-light early 14th-century window and a later, three-light cusped window. The north aisle retains three 13th-century lancet windows, one blocked, and a square doorway. To the east are two three-light windows with ogee heads under square hoods. The clerestory has three two-light Perpendicular windows with simple cusped lights under square hoods. The chancel has three two-light Perpendicular windows with cusped heads under square hoods, and a four-light reticulated east window. A vestry was added in 1883 to the north side of the chancel.

Inside, the four-bay arcade is supported by octagonal piers with double chamfered arches and polygonal capitals decorated with nailhead motifs. The tower and chancel arches were rebuilt in 1883. The nave roof is of cambered tie beams with arched braces dropping on wall posts to corbels, along with a ridge piece and a pair of butt purlins. Aisle roofs are of principal and purlin construction. A noteworthy feature is an early 14th-century octagonal font with eight facets, each displaying a different tracery pattern. A late 13th-century tomb recess is located in the south nave wall, featuring two orders of shafts, undercut capitals, a stilted arch, and complex mouldings including fleur-de-lys motifs. A timber poor box is inscribed with "Remember the poore (sic) 1709." The pulpit has a carved sounding board with an arcaded center flanked by strapwork panels and a cornice carried on scrolled consoles. An inscription reads “Here the word of the Lord 1604”. A free-standing black and white marble sarcophagus commemorating Edward Manners (1811) stands in the north nave aisle. Fragments of 15th and 17th-century stained glass are found in the south aisle windows, and fragments of 14th-century glass are present in the chancel windows.