Church Of St Mary

Parish church dating from the late 12th century, with additions and alterations spanning the 13th, 14th, and 17th centuries, and heavily restored in the 19th century. The building is constructed in coursed limestone rubble with limestone ashlar, finished with thick pebble dash and render incorporating embedded oyster shells. The roofs are lead and slate with stone coped gables and cross finials.

The church comprises a 12th-century west tower, nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, and chancel. The west tower was refurbished in the 14th century and heavily restored in the 19th century. It features two-stage diagonal buttresses, with the upper stage of the south-west buttress containing a cusped, ogee-headed niche. The 19th-century pointed west window has three cusped pointed lights with 14th-century style tracery and a hood mould with grotesque head label stops. Single rectangular lights with chamfered surrounds appear on the west, north and south sides. Bell openings on all four sides comprise pairs of small, narrow lancets. A moulded string course sits above the bell openings, followed by moulded eaves with corner gargoyles and a broad parapet.

The north aisle is thickly rendered with a 14th-century cusped oculus in its west end. The north side features a plinth and four 19th-century two-stage buttresses. A 19th-century west window has a pointed head with two cusped ogee-headed lights, tracery, hood mould and label stops. A late 14th-century pointed doorway to the east has a moulded head and jambs in one, with a plank door. Two pointed 19th-century windows to the east each have three cusped pointed lights, tracery, hood mould and label stops. A low clerestory contains two 14th-century two-light mullion windows.

The north side of the chancel is thickly rendered, showing the outline of a pointed 12th-century blocked doorway. The east end of the chancel has a render finish with a plinth; three-stage angle buttresses flank a pointed 19th-century window with three cusped lights, tracery and hood mould running into the string course to each side. A slit light appears in the gable. The south side of the chancel features thick render and a blocked 13th-century doorway to the east with a sharply pointed head, chamfered surround in one, moulded imposts and hood mould. A 19th-century west window has a pointed head with three cusped pointed lights and tracery. A single narrow 19th-century window to the west has a trefoiled head.

The east end of the rendered south aisle has a 14th-century window with four-centred head and three 19th-century cusped ogee-headed lights with hood mould. The south side of the aisle features a two-stage angle buttress with gable set-off and finial. Two pointed 19th-century windows to the west each have three cusped pointed lights, tracery, hood mould and head label stops. A 14th-century gabled porch contains a 14th-century pointed doorway with moulded head and jambs in one. The porch interior has a 14th-century south doorway with pointed double-chamfered head with raised keystone, double-chamfered jambs with richly foliate impost bands, and a 17th-century plank door. The west end of the south aisle has a two-stage buttress with gabled set-off and finial. A 19th-century west window has a four-centred head with three cusped ogee-headed lights, tracery and hood mould with head label stops.

The interior contains a 14th-century tower arch with tall, pointed, double-chamfered head dying into rectangular jambs chamfered towards the east. Five-bay north and south arcades run the length of the church. The two western bays on each side are late 12th-century with double-chamfered heads, high plinths, round piers with plain moulded capitals, and western responds with large corbel heads. The three eastern bays on each side are 14th-century with double-chamfered pointed heads, high plinths, octagonal piers and plain moulded capitals with moulded corbel eastern responds. An early 13th-century chancel arch, restored in the 19th century, has keeled responds, plain moulded capitals and a double-chamfered head. Pointed blocked 13th-century doorways appear in the north and south chancel walls, the northern one with a chamfered head and jambs in one. A corbelled shelf on the north wall reuses a 14th-century impost with human head and flower head banded decoration.

The south-east chapel contains a pointed aumbry in the south wall, with part of a tomb recess arch to the west, broken off by the eastern-most window. The interior furnishings include two 15th-century chairs and two pews, all with poppy head bench ends. A 15th-century font, heavily restored in 1844, features an octagonal bowl with shields set in cusped panels and a figure of Christ climbing out of a tomb, supported on a cluster of eight shafts. The 19th-century additions comprise roofs, pews and an ornate reredos. Two medieval gravestones are set into the floor to the south-west of the nave, both with illegible inscriptions; one features an inscribed cross with base and shaped plinth.