Church Of St Mary

Church of St. Mary

This chapel-of-ease, now a parish church, was built circa 1182–95 for Ralph L'Estrange. The building was partly rebuilt and extended in 1847, with the chancel restored in 1901.

The church is constructed from roughly coursed and dressed red sandstone blocks and uncoursed red and grey sandstone rubble, with yellow brick dressings. The roofs are machine tile with stepped coped verges and stone crosses to the gables of the transept, nave and chancel.

The church follows the original 2-cell plan of nave and chancel with the addition of a south transept and west bellcote (1847). A north vestry and organ chamber were added in 1901, and an early twentieth-century west porch was constructed.

The north side of the nave is buttressed in three bays and features an original round-headed window in the west bay with projecting chevron decoration to the soffit of the arch, hoodmould and moulded imposts. The centre and east bays have nineteenth-century windows in imitation of the original. The south side has elaborately moulded nineteenth-century paired broad lancets with yellow brick heads to the east of the gabled transept. The transept itself has triple stepped lancets with hoodmould and foliated label-stops to the south and paired broad lancets to the east and west walls. Similar paired broad lancets appear to the west of the transept and on the west wall of the nave, also with hoodmould and head-stops.

The gabled yellow brick bellcote above the west wall has pointed louvred openings—double on the east and west sides and single to north and south—with pierced trefoils above on the east and west and a fish-shaped weathervane. The late Perpendicular-style porch has a segmental arch with blind ogee above and foliated label-stops, with an embattled parapet continued to a low-pitched gable. Chamfered rectangular windows appear on the north and south sides; the door has blind Gothic tracery. Behind this porch is a doorway of 1847 with a shouldered arch.

The chancel's south side is buttressed in two bays on a chamfered plinth continued to the east end. A round-headed priest's doorway in the west bay has a hoodmould, carved imposts and projecting chevron decoration to the soffit of the arch, with a recessed segmental tympanum and one order of shafts with waterleaf carving to the capitals. A nineteenth-century Romanesque-style window occupies the east side. The east window of 1847 has triple round-headed lights with chevron decoration to the soffits, divided by plain pilasters with moulded imposts and a recessed quatrefoil above. A twin-gabled vestry and organ chamber to the north has round-headed windows to the east and to the west gable on the north. A lean-to to the west has a doorway with shouldered arch.

Interior

The interior contains an apparently blocked late twelfth-century north arcade of four single-chamfered round-headed arches with hoodmould, circular piers, square chamfered bases, and moulded capitals—one featuring waterleaf carving—and polygonal abaci. The entire arcade leans inwards to the south, suggesting it is not in situ.

The nave roof is a heavily restored seventeenth-century double-purlin roof in three bays with raking struts from collars to principal rafters. A similar nineteenth-century roof covers the transept, supported on massive carved wooden corbels. The chancel has a nineteenth-century arch-braced collar beam roof in two bays with cusped struts from collars to cusped principal rafters. A pointed chancel arch with corbelled responds dates from 1901. A round-headed arch of 1901 on the same line as the north nave arcade leads from the chancel to the organ chamber.

The priest's door is blocked. A nineteenth-century Romanesque-style piscina is located on the north side of the chancel. The font is tub-shaped with two plain bands to the centre and to the rim and base, probably dating from the twelfth century.

Stained glass in the transept and in windows to the east on the south side of the nave dates from 1847; the remainder is late nineteenth or early twentieth century, including the east window of circa 1915. Other fittings and furnishings are late nineteenth century or later, although pews incorporate some earlier panelling and a reading desk has a carved panel with the superscription "IB 1674". There are no monuments of note.

The north nave arcade presents a puzzle. There is no external sign of blocked arches, and the window in the west bay appears to be genuine twelfth-century work. The existence of a short section of chamfered plinth to the west of the south transept indicates the arcade could not originally have been on that side. Prints of the church made before 1847 show no aisle on that side. It is possible the arcade was brought from another church.

The earthworks of a substantial and probably roughly contemporary motte and bailey castle (a Scheduled Ancient Monument) lie immediately to the east. The church was originally a dependent chapelry of Kinnerley. On building the church, Ralph L'Estrange granted the advowson to Haughmond Abbey.