Church Of St Matthew

Church of St Matthew

This is a parish church built in 1868 on Boughton Church Road, designed by J. Fowler of Louth in the 13th-century Gothic Revival style. The church is constructed of snecked ashlar and brick with ashlar dressings and has a slate roof. The plinth is chamfered and partly rendered, with a sill band and coped gables topped with crosses. A single ornate round stone gable stack rises from the roof.

The building comprises a south-west tower, nave, chancel, vestry, and south porch. The tower is buttressed and rises in two stages, featuring a string course and billeted eaves. It is topped with a broach spire with four tiers of lucarnes. On the south side of the tower is a chamfered light with a clock above it, and on the west side are two chamfered lights. The second stage contains four double lancet bell openings with Geometrical tracery.

The buttressed nave extends four bays, with three double lancet windows on each side, all featuring hood moulds and stops. The west end has two chamfered lancets and above them a round quatrefoil window. The chancel, occupying two bays, is buttressed at the south-east corner and has a stepped sill band to the east. Its east end contains a large triple lancet window. The south side of the chancel has two double lancets with a single buttress to the west. The vestry, two bays in length, has decorative kneelers. Its north side features a shouldered doorway with hood mould to the east and a double lancet in a square-headed reveal to the west, while the east end has a double lancet with a round light above.

The south porch is engaged with the tower and nave, with two corner buttresses and a coped gable with kneeler and remains of a cross. The south doorway has a chamfered opening with hood mould and stops.

The interior reveals a complex and ornate scheme. To the left inside is a door to the tower, while the south door has a roll-moulded reveal and hood mould. The interior is constructed of brick with a cogged and blue brick sill band, ashlar and blue brick window heads and bands, and a billeted brick wall plate. The aisleless nave features a timber screen at the west end and a scissor-braced principal rafter roof with ashlar pieces. West windows contain 19th-century stained glass.

The chancel arch is particularly notable, built of chamfered polychrome brick with a keeled roll-moulded ashlar intrados, incised small imposts and responds with conical moulded brackets, dogtooth bands, marble shafts, square foliate capitals, and an impost band with stops. The chancel's north side has an organ recess to the west and a chamfered piscina with a four-centred arched head and hood mould with stops to the east. The east end features a gradine with four trefoil-headed moulded openings and a trefoil-headed crocketed tabernacle with flanking marble shafts. The east window contains stained glass dated 1869. The south side has a single sedilia with scrolled stops to the east. The vestry and organ chamber contain no significant architectural features.

Fittings include an octagonal font with recessed ogee-headed panels and painted text, standing on a moulded octagonal stem with water-holding base and square plinth with scallop corners. An octagonal ashlar pulpit features crocketed trefoil-headed recessed panels with flanking marble shafts and hood moulds. A desk-type timber lectern with traceried openings stands on a bracketed square chamfered stem. The church contains chamfered panelled benches, moulded and pierced stalls with desk, and a 17th-century chip-carved panelled chest with legs.

Memorials include a brass to W. J. Pickin dated 1869 in a chamfered recess, a marble and slate war memorial tablet of 1918, and various 19th and 20th-century brasses.