Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, King's Pyon

This is a parish church of cruciform plan, dating from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, with significant additions and restoration undertaken in 1872. The building is constructed of sandstone rubble with sandstone dressings and some tufa, with sandstone slate and tile roofs.

The church comprises a nave of four bays (including two-bay transepts), a two-bay chancel with a north vestry and organ chamber, a west tower, and a south porch.

The tower has three external stages divided by moulded strings and an embattled parapet stepped up to the corners. The deep bottom stage is battered, with steeply falling ground that resembles a motte to the west. The top stage features a central trefoil ogeed opening with labels to each side, and central loops to the first stage on the south, north and west sides. The north side has another loop to the left of centre in the battered bottom stage. A central doorway on the south side, possibly from the 17th or 18th century, has a segmental head and a mid-20th century filleted mahogany door. Clock faces are positioned to the north and south at the bottom of the top stage.

The north elevation of the nave projects from the north side of the tower. A central restored round-headed light is present, and to its left is a 12th-century blocked doorway with continuous roll moulding to the round arch and a moulded label with leaf-stops.

The north transept is a 19th-century addition with a 3-light trefoiled window in a two-centred arch to the north gable. The right-hand return has a 2-light window with trefoil-head lights and a quatrefoil in the spandrel beneath a two-centred arch. The left-hand return has a similar window, possibly re-set and showing fewer signs of restoration, with cinquefoil-headed lights. To the left of the transept is a restored round-headed light serving the organ chamber, above a glazed mid-20th century door to a small cellar.

The north vestry has a gable with a chamfered string at eaves level and an ogeed trefoiled one-light opening. Above the string is a round-headed light. The east return has a similar ogeed and trefoiled light.

The chancel features a late 19th-century east window with three trefoiled lights and quatrefoils in the tracery. A fragment of moulded string appears on the right-hand side near the junction with the north vestry. A weathered angle buttress stands at the left corner, and the east end of the nave rises above the chancel with verges, kneelers, the base of a gable cross, and scars of an earlier chancel roof.

On the south elevation of the chancel, a window on the right-hand side has a pair of 19th-century trefoiled lights and a quatrefoil. A weathered angle buttress stands at the right-hand corner. At the extreme left is a one-light trefoil-headed window. Adjacent to this window is an elegant priest's door with roll moulding and a cinquefoiled head; the jambs of the inner roll-moulded order run into filleted cusping, and behind the outer head a secondary head follows the same profile.

The south transept has a 3-light late 19th or early 20th-century south window with trefoiled heads. The eastern return contains a deeply recessed 14th-century window with splayed jambs and a square head. Three trefoil-headed lights run into reticulated quatrefoil tracery. The western return has a blocked square-headed window.

The nave has a square-headed window to the left with three ogeed and trefoiled lights.

The south porch, probably early 20th-century, stands immediately west of the south transept. It features wavy bargeboards, ornate angle struts to four posts, and splat balusters to open upper returns. The south doorway has a continuously moulded round-headed arch and jambs. Two keel-moulded shafts with cushion capitals support a keel-moulded order of the inner arch. A nail-studded ledged oak door, perhaps from the 19th century, is fitted.

Interior

The four-bay 14th-century nave roof features moulded tie beams and cusped raking struts. Two rows of cusped trefoil-headed wind braces run along each slope. Intermediate trusses have arched braces to collars, some of which are cusped. Ashlar pieces are positioned at frequent intervals. The open waggon roof of the chancel is partly restored but retains some early moulded trusses. The south transept has a similar roof structure to the nave. The north transept has a 19th-century pine roof with collar trusses.

The chancel features a continuously chamfered doorway with a two-centred arch to the vestry. To the right of the door is a deeply recessed 12th-century round-headed window. Several wall monuments commemorate members of the Tomkins family, dating from the early 18th to mid-19th centuries. An oak reredos with nine panels features crocketted nodding ogee heads, made for T Cook in 1878, with inscriptions of the Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord's Prayer. The east window contains late 19th-century stained glass depicting the Nativity, Crucifixion, and Ascension. Heavy oak mid-19th century communion rails stand on turned balusters with carved spandrels. A late 19th-century organ with an oak case, gilded pipes, and two manuals is positioned in the chamber.

The vestry contains a grey and white marble wall monument for George Carver, dated 1732, with a cornice of fluted pilasters flanking the inscription panel. Another monument commemorates Richard Tomkins, who died in 1800, in the form of a flat black obelisk with a brown oval inscription plaque. An early 19th-century cast-iron chest with two raised and fielded panels to the sides and lid is inscribed in raised lettering "COALBROOKDALE".

The late 12th-century chancel arch has a two-centred head and two orders. Clustered shafts, some keeled, support water-leaf capitals to the north and trumpet capitals to the south. The impost on the south runs into a two-bay arcade of the south transept. The arcade features a round central pier with an octagonal abacus and double-chamfered two-centred arches.

A piscina on the south wall has a chamfered trefoiled head and a quatrefoil drain. Adjacent is an elaborately decorated tomb recess, probably from the 13th or 14th century, with a richly cusped semi-circular opening under a square head and a quatrefoil in each spandrel. A later chest tomb beneath carries seven trefoil-headed panels to the north and supports an alabaster effigy of a man in armour, whose limbs have been amputated, with a stylised lion at his feet. Alongside is a sandstone effigy of a woman supine in prayer.

On the east wall is a framed prospect of the Church of St Mary, dated 1682. On the west wall are several monuments for members of the Carpenter family. The earliest, for John Carpenter who died in 1728, is in grey and white marble and unusually takes the form of a Venetian window above which is a pediment with flanking scrolls and an apron beneath with a winged skull. The east window contains stained glass depicting Christ and soldiers for Lieutenant Richard King, who died 18th April 1916. The south window depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary, St John the Baptist, and St Elizabeth.

The north transept, added in 1872, has a 19th-century arcade resembling that of the south transept. A font, perhaps from the 15th century, has a round base and step with a tapered cylindrical bowl. The north window features achievement and foliated designs in stained glass for John Birch Peploe, who died in 1869.

Both transepts have in their western arcade bays a cast-iron late 19th-century heater approximately six feet by three feet by two feet, featuring diapered grills and a foliated frieze. The nave contains late 19th-century furnishings: pine pews with wedged rails and seats, an oak lectern, a part-octagonal oak pulpit with brass candlesticks, and a similarly detailed reading desk. A stone wall monument with a rounded head between square shoulders commemorates James Bryges, who died in 1769. On the west wall are 19th-century wall plaques for the Tomkins family, beneath which is a wooden ogeed and pinnacled screen containing a doorway to the tower, created for Anna Jane Wilson, who died in 1898.

An oak font with an octagonal bowl supported by four angles carved in the round is fitted with an elaborate crocketted cover counter-weighted from the roof, bearing a partly missing inscription, "Bride ... The Spirit ...". Six early 20th-century bronze-finished lamps on chains are present, with two similar examples in the transepts.