Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church dating from the late 11th century with significant additions and alterations in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, and restored in 1887. The building is constructed of ashlar and coursed limestone rubble.

The church comprises a western tower, nave, chancel, south porch, and north vestry. The two-stage 14th-century ashlar tower features a bell-moulded plinth, double-chamfered string course, and a battlemented parapet with corner grotesque clasping buttresses. Above rises a recessed octagonal spire with two sets of alternating lucarnes with finial gables and steeply pointed cinquefoil openings. The spire is crowned with an ornate finial that was replaced in the 20th century. The belfry stage has paired louvred openings with cinquefoil heads and mouchette over, chamfered surrounds and hood moulds. A sundial dated 1766 is carved on the south side.

The west window is of two lights with 19th-century tracery and a 14th-century hood. The north aisle, of coursed limestone rubble, contains a 19th-century three-light window and a late 12th-century doorway with a semi-circular chevron-moulded head, plain outer order on angle shafts with debased waterleaf imposts and hood mould. To the east is a 15th-century window with trefoil heads to the lights and a triangular head. The 19th-century vestry has cusped single and paired lights and a Tudor-arched north doorway. The chancel east window has 19th-century tracery in three lights with a 15th-century moulded surround. The south wall displays two 15th-century two-light windows with ogee heads to the lights, panel tracery, four-centred heads and hoods. The south wall of the nave has a single three-light window, two-light windows with flat heads, ogee heads to lights and hood moulds, and beyond the porch a three-light 15th-century window with cusped heads to lights, panel tracery, triangular head and an 18th-century wall plaque.

The 14th-century gabled porch has a pointed outer doorway with a concave moulded arch and reveals. The moulded imposts feature small grinning human heads, and the hood mould has human head stops. The porch contains side benches. An Anglo-Saxon cross shaft with interlace and a 12th-century muzzled bear's head are built into the porch wall. The south door is late 11th-century, tall and semi-circular headed, with two plain orders and a hood with shallow cable-moulded imposts. A bearded human head is carved over the door.

Interior

The tower has a tall pointed double-chamfered arch with semi-circular responds and octagonal abaci. Within the tower is a pointed doorway to the stair and an eight-ribbed vault with a circular bell-rope hole. Either side of the tower arch are quoined full-height reveals. The north and south doorways have tall semi-circular headed rear arches. In the nave walls are earlier blocked openings and a small section of herringbone masonry. The north wall contains a steeply pointed triple-chamfered archway to the organ loft with recut wave-moulded reveals and 19th-century imposts. The hood mould has finely carved 14th-century heads, and this archway possibly led originally to a chantry chapel.

The late 11th-century chancel arch is a single narrow semi-circular headed square order with billet and fluted moulded imposts. Later pointed openings have been cut either side. The chancel north wall has a double-chamfered 15th-century four-centred arch leading to the vestry. Above this, on one side, is a small pointed opening with a chamfered rear arch. Further west is an arched tomb recess, an aumbry at low level, and a pointed opening at low level. The south side contains a further low-level aumbry. The nave roofs and chancel have moulded ties with ogee stops and moulded principals dating from 1710. A stained-glass window in the south nave by Kempe was installed in 1903.

The church contains delicate early 18th-century turned altar rails with a moulded top. 19th-century fittings include a carved wooden beam and crucifix. A 13th-century tub font has a trefoil-headed blank arcade with alternating trefoils and quatrefoils in the tympanum and an octagonal base.

In the sanctuary, the altar is raised on three steps in the centre. Behind it stands an oak cabinet made from a 15th-century square pew containing the arms of the de le Launde family of North Witham. This was repurposed and made into a chest in 1840.

Monuments

The chancel floor contains a brass inscription and base of a brass figure to William Miskerton (died 1425) and a plaque to Thomas Jackson (died 1697). The chancel north wall displays an alabaster slab with a cross fleury and black-letter inscription dating to around 1430, set in a tomb recess. Above the recess is a grey and white marble wall plaque to Maria Johnson, with an oval grey plaque on white marble drapery featuring a skull, scrolled back with shield surmounted by cherubs and urns.

An architectural tablet to Sir John Sherard (died 1724) is by Edward Stanton and Horsnail. It has a central inscription with a baldacchino of drapery, composite flanking columns, and a segmental pediment supporting an achievement of arms and urns.

A large tablet commemorates Richard Sherard of Lobthorpe (died 1668) and features a white marble bust of the deceased with a bible and prayer book, hand on a skull, in a semi-circular surround with highly decorative scrolled brackets. Above is a full entablature with an achievement of arms in an ornate segmental pediment. Beneath is a slate inscription in a moulded surround with flanking fragments of a pediment, scrolled brackets and memento mori.

The south chancel wall contains an inscribed brass plate in a moulded stone surround to Roland Sherard (died 1592). Above is a wall monument to Elizabeth Sherard (died 1658) by Marshall of London, with an oval tablet in a decorative surround featuring an achievement of arms and scrolled pediment. Above the window is a smaller early 18th-century plaque with a segmental pediment.

An arched recess contains a large standing white marble monument to Sir Brownlow Sherard of Lobthorpe (died 1736) by F. Sharpe of Stamford. It features a monumental sarcophagus on a chest with an obelisk to the rear, scrolled legs with claw feet, and an achievement of arms, helms and gauntlets on the top.

In the tower is a white marble wall monument to Sir Richard Sherard (died 1730) by Stanton and Horsnail, with composite columns supporting a broken segmental pediment with cherubs and an urn, gesturing cherubs, and putto heads to the base.