Church Of The Nativity Of The Blessed Virgin Mary

Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

A parish church dating from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, restored in 1870, 1878 and 1883. The building is constructed of sandstone rubble and ashlar with tile and stone slate roofs.

The church comprises an aisled three-plus-three-bay nave, chancel with polygonal east end, crypt, west tower, south chapel and north porch. The porch was formed from the north transept of an earlier cruciform 12th-century church.

The west tower has three and a half stages separated by string courses, with an embattled parapet and raised embattled corner over the newel. Clasping buttresses to the north-west and south-west, outshuts to north and south, and a battered plinth to the west characterise the base. The first stage has a west fenestration only, consisting of three slightly stepped lancets with chamfers and hood mouldings with shafts and plain capitals in two and three orders. The second stage has pairs of 2-light chamfered lancets with labels, one pair to north and south and two pairs to west. The top stage displays three chamfered lancets of equal height with labels to each of the four faces. The west doorway features a deeply moulded 2-centred head with fillets, attached shafts and plain capitals, with the label extending into the string course also carrying a fillet. 13th-century strap hinges remain on the door. The outshuts forming the west ends of the aisles each have a small chamfered lancet. A clock on the north face is inscribed "VICTORIA / 1901".

The north aisle has four small chamfered lancets and a central weathered buttress west of the north porch. The porch itself features a central trefoil-headed gable light with one small round-headed chamfered light to each flank and an outer 2-centred arch with double roll moulding and label. To the east of the porch are four windows, each of three lights with ogeed and trefoiled heads and quatrefoil tracery with labels. The east window has one chamfered 2-centred light also with a label. The nave clerestorey has seven single-light 2-centred windows, with the third from the west obscured by the porch gable. Above this are visible the roof lines of the former transept.

The crypt and chancel sit over falling ground and have a moulded plinth with 2-centred windows of one trefoiled light with label to the crypt and apse. The north wall of the chancel has three trefoiled tracery windows: the westernmost of three lights and the other two of two lights. The east end has angle buttresses, with the east window reported by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments as having three trefoiled and ogeed lights with two quatrefoils in the tracery above (it was undergoing restoration at the time of survey in July 1985). The north-east and south-east windows have two cinquefoiled lights with cinquefoil and quatrefoil tracery. Beneath the south-east window is a doorway into the crypt with a 2-centred head. The four south windows are of two lights and similar to those on the north side. Four eastern buttresses have pinnacles with pyramidical tops decorated with ball-flower motifs running up to the angles and crockets. Crocketted turrets sit at each side of the junction of nave and chancel. A continuous large ball-flower cornice runs below the eaves.

The south (Chilstone) Chapel has a large 2-centred 5-light east window with four rows of restored quatrefoil tracery, positioned to the south of the 2-light trefoil-headed and traceried window of the east end of the south aisle. The south wall has five restored 3-light windows with quatrefoil tracery set between regular buttresses, with a moulded cornice in two bands above. The west window has restored trefoil tracery. Next to the south door is a segmentally-headed 3-light 15th-century window with cinquefoiled lights under a label with two restored head-stops. In the south wall of the tower outshut are two small chamfered lancets. The south doorway resembles that on the west side of the tower with fillet mouldings and elaborate, probably 19th-century, strap hinges.

Interior of the porch has a restored wagon roof with a triangular-headed doorway at floor level to the right of the north doorway, which features a 2-centred head with fillet mouldings and head stops. The main roofs have restored collar trusses, some with arch braces to the collars. The roof over the south chapel, probably 14th-century, is the least restored. Beneath the upper stages of the tower are heavy horizontal baulks.

The nave arcade features 2-centred 13th-century double-chamfered arches with circular piers, octagonal abaci and water-holding bases. The south chapel arcade of five bays has 2-centred double chamfered arches with four clustered shafts to each pier and a ball-flower frieze on the abaci. The chancel arch is 2-centred and double chamfered, with the inner order supported by fillet-moulded shafts with moulded capitals and water-holding bases. Above the arch is a small central 2-centred arch with two continuous roll mouldings presenting a plain segmental head to the chancel side. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments reported signs of large figure painting above the chancel arch, probably a Doom painting.

The chancel contains a piscina with a 2-centred head, recessed trefoil and quatrefoil drain linked to a similarly headed three-bay sedilia with quatrefoil shafts and ball-flower enrichment. Fragments of 13th-century stained glass are present in the angled windows at the east end, and the Royal Commission reported a relatively complete east window featuring St John and Christ at the Last Supper and The Adoration.

The crypt has a central octagonal pier without an abacus, supporting ten ribs. It is accessed from the east ends of the nave aisles. The tower arch is 2-centred with three chamfers, and entry to the newel of the tower has a chamfered semi-circular head with elaborate 13th-century strap hinges on a ledged plank door.

On the north side of the chancel is an early 17th-century aedicule framed by two composite columns enclosing two figures at a prie-dieu for Peter Farnons and family. Seven stalls with misericords and desks flank each side of the chancel. On the south side are two brass plaques for John Gough (died 1618) and his wife Marie (died 1620). In the south chapel is another Gough brass wall plaque for Thomas Gough Junior (died 1741, aged 25) with an incised encomium and inscription: "Reader be wary how you catch at Time, / he has a lock before but bald behind / Mourn for the mourners not for the dead, / For he's at rest they in tears. / Bene Vixit, qui bene Latuit."

Two piscinae in the south wall, both 13th-century, one with a trefoiled ogee head. A chest tomb for Richard and Anne Willison by John Gildo (possibly an Italian from Hereford) dated 1574 has mutilated effigies and 2-panelled sides with pointed heads separated by tapered Ionic pilasters, each north panel containing a stylised weeper. Nearby on the west wall is a "CATALOGUE OF BENEFACTION / LEFT TO THE POOR OF MADLEY / 1821 / J YATES Heref". Several wall slabs of 18th to early 19th-century date are present, and beneath the east window is an elaborate 17th-century panelled screen in three panels with carved vine leaves and twisted columns, probably Iberian, in front of which stands a 17th-century communion table.

The font beneath the tower has a massive undecorated circular bowl on large cylindrical steps, possibly 13th-century. The south aisle contains a late medieval chest with strap hinges and a richly embroidered 3-panel altar frontal with a chalice in the centre and "INI" inscription. The north aisle has a doorway with a 2-centred head leading down to the crypt and formerly up to the rood loft, with a doorway above at rood loft level featuring a 3-centred chamfered head and chamfered jambs. A brattished 15th-century beam, probably part of the rood screen, is present. A 15th and 17th-century parclose screen encloses the Lulham Pew with balustered columns, acanthus carving and acorn finials, featuring seven-bay cinquefoiled 15th-century panelling to north and south with brattished top. A bell next to the north door is inscribed "IDHN". A square-headed piscina with semi-octagonal drain sits on the north side of the north pier of the chancel arch.