Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church, completed in 1851 to the design of G. G. Place. The building incorporates a 12th-century south door and is executed in Early 14th-century revival style. Constructed in dressed stone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs.

The church comprises a west tower with spire, nave, north and south aisles, chancel, vestry, and south porch. The exterior features chamfered plinths and eaves, a string course, buttresses, and coped gables to the east and south sides, both topped with crosses. All window and door openings have hood moulds with uncarved stops.

The west tower rises in three stages and is distinguished by four string courses and an eaves band carrying eight gargoyles. It is crowned by a crenellated parapet with eight crocketed pinnacles. The crocketed spire above features two tiers of four gabled lucarnes, a finial, and a weathercock. The first stage contains a moulded doorway to the west with an adjacent stair light, a double lancet with chamfered and rebated reveal, and another stair light above. The second stage has a single lancet to the west, while the third stage is lit by four double lancets with rebated reveals.

The nave includes a three-bay clerestory with three round windows containing quatrefoils on either side. The north aisle has single lancets at its east and west ends, with two lancets and a doorway on the north side. The south aisle similarly has single lancets at its east and west ends, with two lancets to the east on the south side.

The two-bay chancel features a chimney on the north side and a double lancet with curvilinear tracery to the west. The east end contains a five-light lancet with cusps and an intrusive motif. The south side has an off-centre priest's door flanked by triple lancets with spiky intersecting tracery. The vestry to the north of the chancel is a single bay with a lancet to the north.

The south porch is entered through a door with rebated and splayed reveal, chamfered and cove-moulded head.

Internally, the church is furnished with wooden benches. The roof structure features common rafters with collars and ashlar pieces. The 12th-century south doorway retains its original chamfered round head and cove and roll-moulded outer reveal with shafts bearing simple moulded bases and capitals.

The nave arcades, comprising three bays to north and south, employ Early 14th-century style octagonal piers with moulded octagonal bases and capitals. The arches are double chamfered and rebated with hood moulds. The roof structure includes scissor-braced principal rafters with ashlar pieces. The tower arch is notably high, featuring a double chamfered and rebated head, octagonal responds with moulded capitals, and a hood mould. The tower chamber to the west contains two windows with 19th-century stained glass. The north and south aisles each feature four chamfered stone ribs and plain lean-to roofs. The south aisle has an east window with 19th-century stained glass and an easternmost window on the south side with stained glass of 1924.

The chancel arch is exceptionally tall, with a double chamfered and rebated head, painted text, hood mould, and octagonal responds bearing moulded capitals and bases. The east end contains an elaborate glazed tile reredos flanked by tile panels inscribed with the Lord's Prayer and Creed. Above these are larger flanking panels displaying the Ten Commandments. The east window features a foliate carved hood mould and is filled with 19th-century stained glass. The roof is scissor-braced with ashlar pieces.

The church contains numerous fittings and furnishings of note. These include a traceried panelled octagonal timber pulpit on a bracketed stem, an eggcup font of the 17th century, a pierced desk-type lectern of 1936, plain and panelled chamfered benches throughout the church, two pierced clergy desks, two carved-back chairs of the 18th century (one dated 1726), a chip-carved 17th-century chest with legs, and a 19th-century font with octagonal bowl, base, and stem, fitted with a bracketed timber cover incorporating a crocketed finial.

Monuments comprise a Baroque-style marble and alabaster war memorial with colonettes dating to 1918, a brass on marble panel of 1881, brasses of 1882 and 1887, and four 20th-century brasses.