Church Of St Martin

Church of St Martin

Parish church with origins in the 12th century, substantially developed through the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, with significant 19th-century restoration and reconstruction. Built in coursed limestone rubble with rock-faced ashlar, slate and lead roofs.

The church comprises a western tower, nave with clerestorey, north and south aisles, and chancel. The western tower is of three stages separated by string courses, with stepped angled buttresses and a battlemented and pinnacled top. A 16th-century three-light window with panelled tracery and hood mould is built into the blocking of a blocked Romanesque west door; the annular base of one shaft of this original door survives on the south side, and the stones of the jambs can be traced to sill level. The north side of the tower has a 19th-century light at ground floor level. The middle stage features a 19th-century trefoil-headed light to the west and two small stair lights to the south, with a blue painted clock face to the north. The belfry stage has 16th-century paired lights with trefoil heads, four-centred arches and hood moulds.

The north aisle was rebuilt in the 19th century in rock-faced ashlar with single lancets in the west and east walls and three paired lancets in the north wall. The north clerestorey has three paired 15th-century cusped and ogee-headed lights united under flat hood moulds with human head label stops, and an embattled parapet.

The chancel's north wall was refaced in the 19th century beneath the string course, with two 19th-century lancets. The east window is late 13th century with geometric tracery, the lower parts of which survive; the remainder is a 19th-century restoration. The south side of the chancel was refaced with rock-faced ashlar and has two 19th-century lancets and a 19th-century priest's door with hood mould. A single light to the west is a two-light window with ogee heads and cusping in a deeply chamfered reveal.

The south aisle has a large 15th-century three-light ogee-headed and cusped window with a flat double-chamfered head in its east and west walls, with two further similar windows in the south wall. The south doorway is a restored 14th-century opening with moulded reveals, hood mould and label stops. The parapet is embattled and conceals the lead roof. The clerestorey matches that to the north.

Interior

The interior contains early 13th-century north and south arcades of three bays. Both arcades have keeled responds and three octagonal pillars, although one on the north side has a keeled quatrefoil plan. The arches are of two chamfered orders with hood moulds and human head label stops. The Romanesque tower arch has plain reveals and chamfered imposts which continue outward as short string courses; it is probably now of a single order, with a relieving arch above.

In the south aisle are an aumbry and a trefoil-headed piscina. The chancel arch is early 13th century with keeled responds and double-chamfered arches with hood moulds bearing 19th-century label stops. Above, on a ledge in the nave east wall, is a 15th-century rood beam with an embattled top enriched with fleurons. The chancel floor level has been substantially raised in the 19th century. The lower part of a 13th-century piscina survives beneath the eastern window on the south side; in the south wall at the west end, the remains of a blocked 13th-century two-centred arch are cut by a 16th-century opening. The north wall has an aumbry.

All fittings are 19th century except for a 15th-century chalice-shaped font with a fluted octagonal bowl and base. The upper part of the bowl is decorated with battlements above square panels containing cusped triskeles, crosses saltire and blank arcades.

A brass plate on the south wall of the chancel commemorates the children of Sir John Wray of Wharton, died 1613 and 1615, set in a square moulded stone surround.