Church Of St Matthew

Church of St Matthew

This parish church was built in 1855 by T Nicholson. It is constructed of coursed sandstone rubble with limestone dressings and has tiled roofs.

The building comprises a four-bay nave with a western bell-cot, a two-bay chancel, a vestry, and a south porch. The bell-cot is supported by a pair of weathered buttresses and rises to a steep gable with a cross above the west verge of the nave. Two cinquefoil-headed openings carry bells to the north and south, with small trefoiled cross gables flanking them.

The nave's west window has two trefoiled ogeed lights and quatrefoil tracery under a polygonal two-centred head. The north wall has four windows with chamfered polygonal two-centred heads, each traceried with two trefoil-headed lights. The outer pair of windows have quatrefoil tracery and the inner pair trefoil tracery, with one buttress to each side and at the centre. The west wall also has a chamfered plinth and integral weathered angle buttresses extending north and south.

The vestry has a single-light trefoiled window to the north and an east doorway moulded with a two-centred head. The chancel has a north window of two trefoil-headed lights with trefoil tracery and a two-centred head with a label running down into a string that continues around the east wall. The east window has a two-centred head, three trefoil-headed lights, and wheel tracery with radiating trefoils, a weathered angle buttress, and a verge with a gable cross. The chancel's south wall has a string rising to a label over two single-light trefoiled windows with trefoil tracery. The south wall of the nave is separated from the chancel by a buttress above which is an eastern gable cross.

To the east of the porch are two windows, each with two trefoil-headed lights—the west one with trefoil tracery, the east with quatrefoil. To the west of the porch is another window like the easternmost one. The south porch has a gable cross and angled weathered buttresses. Its outer arch has part-octagonal shafts on high bases with a two-centred head, and the south doorway is moulded with a two-centred head.

The interior of the nave has a roof with scissor trusses and ashlar pieces rising from well within the walls on short beams. The chancel has an open wagon roof with a crested wall-plate. The chancel arch is two-centred, moulded and chamfered, rising from wall shafts on corbels carved with acorns and oak leaves.

The chancel contains a reredos in red-brown marble depicting the Last Supper in bas-relief, commissioned in memory of Edith Mary Hole who died in 1886. The main panel is gabled and trefoiled, with a larger gabled niche containing an angel on each side. A piscina with a circular drain is set in the south wall, and a trefoil-headed aumbry is in the north wall.

The east window contains stained glass depicting the Raising of Jairus's daughter, commissioned for Adeline Beatrice Beever who died in 1863. A chair, perhaps of the early 17th century, features turned front legs, a bobbin stretcher, back posts with volute finials, and a back panel with curved top and lower rails both carrying pendants. A wall monument to William Coke, died 1893, curate of Marstow and Pencoyd for 50 years, is rendered in marble with gold tesserae to the margin.

A late 19th-century harmonium, probably American, is housed in the church. It is constructed in mahogany with turned cross cresting at each end and was made by Mason & Hamlin Organ Company. It bears inscribed gold medals for Paris (1878), Sweden (1878), Philadelphia (1876), Santiago de Chile (1875), Vienna (1873), and Paris (1867).

The vestry contains a 17th-century communion table with turned legs, moulded rails, and moulded edges to the top. A heavy metal box inscribed "MILNER'S FIRE-RESISTING BOX LIVERPOOL AND LONDON" commemorates the 60th year of the reign of Queen Victoria in 1897.

The nave contains a pulpit in brown limestone, part-octagonal with three panels each trefoil-headed and crested, rising from a corbel beneath. A 17th-century chest with four front panels each containing a lozenge pattern, an arcaded frieze to the front and sides, plain side panels, and a moulded top is also present.

An east window on the north side contains stained glass depicting St Mary and St Joseph, commissioned for William Holt Beever who died in 1896. A marble memorial to the three men of the parish who died in the 1914-18 war is positioned to the west. The adjacent window to the west contains stained glass, probably of the early 20th century, for William Shuttleworth Clarke with figures of Christ and St Martin.

A large wall monument in the form of an aedicule in 18th-century style with a scrolled surround commemorates Robert Shuttleworth Clarke who died in action near Hooge in 1915. At the top is the monogram of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry and at the bottom the motto AUCTO SPLENDORE RESURGO.

An east window on the south side of the nave contains stained glass depicting Elizabeth and Zacharias, matching the window opposite and commissioned for William Holt Beever. The west window contains stained glass in quatrefoil tracery with the inscription EN DIEU MA FOI.

The font has an octagonal step, an octagonal moulded stem, and an octagonal bowl chamfered on its underside. Five late 19th to early 20th-century paraffin lamps are attached to the walls.

This church replaced the earlier parish church of St Martin, which was situated about three-quarters of a mile to the south-west and was demolished in 1855.