Church of St Martin

Church of St Martin

This is a parish church of primarily 13th-century date, with significant additions and alterations spanning the 17th to 19th centuries. The building comprises a nave and chancel in one, a west tower, a north aisle, a south porch, and a north-east vestry. It is constructed of uncoursed conglomerate and sandstone rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings, except for the tower and the east wall of the chancel, which is built of rock-faced snecked sandstone ashlar. The roofs are of slate.

The west tower dates to around 1632 and rises in three stages with multi-stepped diagonal buttresses, a moulded cornice, and a 19th-century embattled parapet. At the north-west angle is an integral stair turret lit by narrow rectangular slits. The cornice is carved with heads on the north, east, and west faces, with a surviving gargoyle at the south-east corner. The west face contains a three-light Perpendicular window with panel tracery at the first stage, possibly reused from an earlier tower. Below this is a four-centred doorway with a hoodmould and label stops dating to 1841. The door itself is a 17th-century example, heavily boarded with elaborate decorated strap hinges studded with nails. Above the doorway is a moulded inscribed surround bearing the inscription: "Templum quod conspicis Deo Sacrum/Sumplu Suo Instauratum atque Ornatum / Haeredum Curae commendat / ARTURUS VICE COMES DUNGANNON/A.S. MDCCCXLI." A clock to the second stage also dates to 1841. The belfry windows have simple Y-tracery and plain hoodmoulds, while the second stage has narrow round-headed windows on the north and south faces.

The nave and chancel have two large, probably 18th-century ramped buttresses on the south side. The south wall contains several windows of different dates: a square-headed window with two cusped lights at the far left, contemporary with the tower; a square-headed 15th-century window immediately east of the left buttress with three cusped lights; and a window to the right with Y-tracery dating to around 1632. Immediately to the left of the right buttress is a late 13th-century pointed doorway that has been infilled to the bottom half with two 17th-century mullions inserted to the top, forming a three-light window. To the left is a late 19th-century gabled half-dormer with a small two-light Decorated-style window and hoodmould. An early 19th-century porch immediately to the right of the west window has red brick side walls in Flemish stretcher bond and a stone gable with a round-headed arch. Behind the porch is a 14th-century south doorway with a double-chamfered four-centred arch. The chancel contains two late 15th- or early 16th-century square-headed windows, one with three cusped lights to the left and one with four cusped lights to the right. The east wall was entirely rebuilt in 1862 and contains a three-light window with geometrical tracery.

The north aisle was built in two stages, the earliest part being to the east of a straight joint (immediately to the left of the third window from the east), where the original eaves line and angle quoins remain visible. The aisle contains a square-headed window to the east with three cusped lights and plain spandrels, probably 17th-century but renewed in the 19th century; a 15th-century square-headed window to the left of centre with a single cusped light; a four-light window to the right of centre; and a two-light window to the right, the latter two being similar in style and date to the eastern window. A low infilled doorway with a depressed arch is located at the far right. The west wall was rebuilt in 1869 and contains a two-light Decorated-style window.

At the junction of the north aisle and chancel is a hip-roofed vestry dated 1810. It has a cambered doorway on the east side with an inscribed moulded surround reading: "This Vestry was erected / and the Church Repewed / A.D. 1810 / WILLIAM CLEAVER D.D. Bishop of St. Asaph / JOHN WILLIAM BOURKE M.A. Vicar." A mid-19th-century two-light window with a quatrefoil above is located to the left of the doorway.

The church underwent restoration in 1841 and the east wall of the chancel was rebuilt in 1862.

Interior

The interior features a pointed double-chamfered tower arch. The arcade between the nave and north aisle comprises five bays with four-centred arches resting on short octagonal piers with moulded capitals and plinths, now mostly below floor level. The two eastern bays, which are now infilled, are slightly earlier than the remainder and have slightly shorter piers.

The nave and chancel are spanned by a late 15th-century arch-braced collar-beam roof in nine bays with double purlins, cusped wind braces, and cusped struts from collars to principal rafters. The two eastern bays have a ceilure with an elaborately carved cornice and three bands of foliage decoration, with the central band at the apex also carved with dragons. The bosses were probably carved in 1841. An eaves line of a pre-late 15th-century roof is also visible. The north aisle has a similar but more irregular collar-beam roof in eight bays with corbels for the original roof above the eastern arches of the arcade.

The chancel contains 19th-century choir stalls incorporating decorative Jacobean panelling, with three on each side. Original 17th-century communion rails, which originally enclosed the north, south, and west sides of the altar, are now re-sited but retain turned balusters and double gates to the centre. The reredos was slightly cut down around 1980 and incorporates Jacobean panelling and parts of early 19th-century box pews formerly in the nave and north aisle. Many of these pews once had brass plates inscribed with the names of families or houses to which they belonged, but these have been entirely replaced by Victorian pews from another church.

A three-decker pulpit with a sounding board, probably erected around 1810, incorporates Jacobean woodwork. It was formerly positioned against the south wall but has been dismantled and is currently stored at the west end of the north aisle pending reconstruction. Two chairs in the sanctuary are probably Jacobean, and two others have late-medieval carved bench ends as their backs. An octagonal 19th-century Perpendicular-style font with pedestal stands in the nave. Two oak chests at the west end, one strongly bound with iron bands, complete the furnishings.

The church contains stained glass by David Evans of Shrewsbury, including representations of St Peter and St Paul in the nave (third window from the west) and St James and St John in the north aisle (west window in the north wall). Other windows throughout the church display religious monograms and coats-of-arms of local families in similar style. Late 19th-century stained glass appears in the east window.

Monuments include an 18th-century hatchment of Viscount Dungannon immediately east of the south door and an 18th- or 19th-century benefactors' board immediately east of the infilled doorway in the north aisle. Wall tablets and memorials from the 18th and 19th centuries are scattered throughout, including the notable Birch/Price memorial erected in 1823 on the south side of the nave and a memorial to Richard Phillips (died 1821), now in the eastern bay of the arcade, by C.M. Seddon of Liverpool, depicting a kneeling woman holding a cross in front of an urn. A grave slab commemorating Esther Stoakes (died 1747) has been re-erected in the infilled doorway in the south wall of the nave. Brass plates fixed to the pillars of the arcade commemorate Margaret Cupper (died 1695), Edward Phillips (died 1752), and Richard Barkley (died 1779).