Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Sutton Maddock

This is a Perpendicular church with a Tudor-Gothic tower, combining a rare 16th-century tower with a substantially rebuilt 19th-century nave and chancel. The tower is dated 1579, while the remainder was rebuilt in 1887-88 by Thomas Nicholson & Son of Hereford, replacing an earlier Georgian structure.

The church is built of local red sandstone. The tower section is laid in regular courses, while the 19th-century sections employ snecked hammer-dressed stone. The roofs are tiled with cast-iron rainwater goods.

The plan comprises a nave, a lower and narrower chancel, a west tower, a north vestry and organ chamber, and a south porch.

The tower is two storeys with string courses and diagonal buttresses. The lower stage contains a three-light west window with an impost band carried over as a hood mould. The upper stage is notably tall and has straight-headed three-light bell openings with round-headed lights and hood moulds. A weathered relief panel of a lion appears in the south wall, and the east wall bears a worn tablet dated 1579. The embattled parapet features corner pinnacles with a pyramidal roof and weathervane behind them.

The nave and chancel have moulded stone cornices and coped gables. The three-bay nave has three-light windows, with the west bay on the south wall forming the porch. This porch has a pointed entrance beneath a crocketed ogee hood mould and straight-headed three-light side windows. The south doors feature flowing strap hinges in a surround with continuous moulding. The two-bay chancel is lit by two-light windows and a five-light east window, above a date tablet in the plinth. The north side contains only one window and the organ chamber and vestry, which has a two-light straight-headed north window, a pointed east door, and an external stack on the west side.

Inside, the tall 16th-century pointed tower arch has semi-circular responds with broad fillets. The nave features a five-bay arched-brace roof on a moulded cornice, with two tiers of windbraces formed into X patterns. The chancel arch has an inner order of shafts with moulded capitals and a hood mould with head stops. The chancel roof is a trussed-rafter type. The arch to the north organ chamber is finished with continuous moulding. Walls are exposed dressed stonework.

The ogee-headed piscina and aumbry sit in the south and north walls respectively, the former with a corbelled basin. The nave floor is laid with 19th-century patterned tiles and parquet beneath the pews. The stepped chancel floor is concealed by fitted carpets.

Notable fixtures include an octagonal Perpendicular font on a raised plinth, with a panelled stem and quatrefoils around the bowl. The polygonal pulpit has open panels with Gothic tracery on a stone base. The pews have panelled ends, and the nave is finished with panelled wainscot. Choir stalls feature ends with poppy heads incorporating pointed quatrefoils and open pointed-trefoil friezes to the fronts. A wooden communion rail sits on brass uprights with scrollwork brackets. An open three-sided reredos on octagonal posts incorporates candlestick-bearing angels and a cornice of foliage trails.

Wall tablets beneath the tower commemorate William Jones (died 1823), Walter Mansell (died 1795), and Elizabeth Farmer (died 1837).

The stained glass includes a five-light east window depicting the life of Christ by Camm & Co of Smethwick, dated 1908. The chancel north wall contains representations of Saints Mary and John, possibly of 1887 by Samuel Evans of West Smethwick. In the nave north wall are scenes of the Baptism of Christ and Christ blessing children, possibly also of 1887 by Done & Davies of Shrewsbury.