Church Of St Adelwold

The Church of St Adelwold is a parish church dating back to around 1300, with significant additions and alterations made in the 15th century, 16th century, 1806, and a restoration in 1933. The construction combines various materials: coursed chalk, greenstone, ironstone, and limestone rubble, with limestone ashlar, red brick, and some rendered areas. The roof is slate, with stone coped gables and cross finials.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave with a south porch, and a chancel with a north chapel. The west tower, built around 1300, features a moulded plinth and four-stage diagonal buttresses. It has a pointed west window with three pointed lights, intersecting tracery, a hood mould, and head label stops. A moulded string course sits above a smaller rectangular window with a shallow pointed head and slatted shutters. The bell openings are pointed arches with Y tracery, hood moulds, and label stops. A four-stage rectangular stair turret is set into the south side, with slit windows. Moulded eaves are present, punctuated by gargoyles on each face, topped by battlements with corner pinnacles.

The north side of the nave has a buttress to the west and two 15th-century windows, each with three cusped, round-headed lights and vertical mullions rising from the top of each light. The red brick north chapel, built in 1806, has a lean-to roof, a plank door to the north, and a two-light ashlar mullion window to the east. The chancel, also from 1806, is of red brick with an ashlar plinth and moulded brick eaves. The east window has a segmental head containing three cusped and pointed lights. The south side of the chancel is plain.

The south side of the nave has quoins on the west and east corners. A 19th-century window, with a segmental head and three pointed, cusped lights and a hood mould, is located on the east. The late 16th-century south porch has a plinth and a doorway with a flat head, rounded corners, a broad chamfered surround, and an iron gate. Inside the porch are flanking stone benches. The inner doorway, dating back to around 1300, features a pointed head, roll-moulded head and jambs, and a plank door.

The interior tower arch, around 1300, is richly moulded and pointed, supported by a plain polygonal corbel to the north and a stylised foliate corbel to the south. A late 13th-century doorway is located inside the tower. The broad 14th-century chancel arch is pointed and double-chamfered, dying into the walls. An archway of 1806 leads to the north chapel. The octagonal font dates back to the 13th century and sits on a richly moulded base and plinth. The church also contains 20th-century pews, an altar rail, and a pulpit. 19th-century roofs are also present. A grey and white marble monument with an urn commemorates John Emeris, who died in 1835. A painted shield is set within a wreath above the south doorway.