Church Of St Mary And All Saints

Parish church, with origins dating before 1196 when an Augustinian Priory was founded on the site. The church itself is a mix of 12th, 14th, and 19th-century work, largely rebuilt in 1890 by Hodgson Fowler. It comprises a single-celled, four-bay design, with the nave occupying the western three bays. The chancel is distinguished by a buttress. The church is constructed of ashlar, topped with a steeply pitched plain tile roof, ashlar coped gables, a cross-finial over the east gable, and a bellcote over the west. A deeply moulded and chamfered plinth runs around the base. The west wall features two gabled buttresses, delineating the former south aisle, with a moulded sill band below a two-light pointed arch window featuring Curvilinear tracery and a square niche. The gable is topped by an ashlar bellcote, displaying moulded bands and a round-headed arch culminating in an ogee pyramid. The north wall includes two buttresses with set-offs, a small gabled feature, and two tall, two-light lancet windows. A pointed arch doorway is also present. The east wall is distinguished by a sill band below a five-light, four-centred arch window with Perpendicular tracery, a hoodmould, and diagonal buttresses. A deep, shallow arched tomb recess is set into the south wall to the east, alongside three tall, three-light pointed arch windows with Curvilinear tracery. A projecting gabled porch features a coped gable, cross-finial, gabled buttresses, and a pointed archway with a moulded, double-chamfered arch and single shaft piers. Above the archway is an elaborate, ogee-headed niche containing a Coronation of the Virgin. The inner doorway is elaborately decorated with a round-arched design featuring double arches decorated with lozenges and two orders of shafts with scalloped and volute capitals. The interior contains a single, triple-shafted, keeled respond indicative of the former nave arcade. A font is composed of an ashlar octagonal bowl and stem. 19th-century furnishings include wooden pews and a pulpit. Further features are a wooden rood screen, choir stalls, an organ case, an altar and a reredos. Six pieces of important 8th-century Saxon interlace carving are found in the eastern corner of the north wall. A wall monument to Marmaduke Dickinson (1711) is set into the west wall, featuring a curved surround, figures flanking either side, and a segmental pediment with a cherub’s head and wings. The north wall hosts eight black and white marble wall tablets dedicated to the Peacock family, while the south wall features three similar marble tablets belonging to the Cust family.