Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Edvin Loach and Saltmarshe

This parish church was built in 1858–60 by the renowned Victorian architect George Gilbert Scott, at the expense of Edmund Higginson of Saltmarshe Castle. It is constructed of coursed local sandstone with buff limestone dressings, a tile roof incorporating bands of fishscale tiles and crested ridge tiles, and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The church is a compact and severely detailed Early English Gothic Revival building with steep roofs and an iron cross mounted over the east end. The plan consists of a nave and chancel under the same roof with an apsidal east end, a south porch, an embraced west tower and spire, and a north lean-to vestry.

The exterior displays characteristic features of Scott's late 13th-century style. The nave has two 2-light windows in both north and south walls. The south porch entrance features round responds with foliage capitals, and the nave south doorway inside has continuous mouldings. The nave is buttressed below the tower. Its west window contains geometrical tracery. The bell openings are 2-light windows with central columns topped by foliage capitals and louvres. A corbel table sits below the stone broach spire, which is furnished with lucarnes. The chancel windows have hood moulds with foliage stops and a sill band. The south wall contains twin pointed lights with a central column, and the 3-sided apse has single-light windows. The north vestry has a pair of narrow cusped lights in its east wall.

Inside, the tower is supported in the nave by two stout round piers with foliage capitals, below a stilted tower arch with filleted roll moulding and segmental pointed arches on the north and south sides dying into the imposts. The division between nave and chancel is expressed only by a wide pointed wooden arch. Both nave and chancel have trussed-rafter roofs. Walls are plastered. The nave and chancel retain their original tile floors, with raised wooden floors laid beneath the pews.

Many of the furnishings date from 1860. The plain octagonal font stands on a stem with clustered shafts. A plain stone polygonal pulpit, painted white, features one marble shaft. The wooden communion rails display a lozenge pattern. The pews are simple with shaped and moulded ends. Priests' stalls on the south side have high arm rests and panelled fronts. The apse contains stained-glass windows dating from after 1869, depicting the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension.

The ruins of the earlier medieval church stand nearby in the churchyard. Both the old and new churches are situated within a motte and bailey, with the bailey defences corresponding closely to the edge of the churchyard.