Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a Grade I listed church located on the north side of Church Street in Cleobury Mortimer. The building is primarily of 12th-century origin, with substantial development continuing through the medieval period and later restoration work in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The church is constructed of coursed and uncoarsed stone rubble with ashlar dressings. It has plain-tile roofs with old tiles surviving on the south pitch of the nave, stone-coped gables, and oak shingles to the spire.

The 12th-century tower is a four-stage structure with lower stages featuring shallow clasping buttresses. A reset former tower arch sits in the west wall. The upper two stages are 13th-century, set above an offset line. The tower displays a clockface over a lancet on its south face, lancets at each lower stage on the west face (the lowest being a wide lancet), and a single lancet at the upper stage on the north face. The top stage contains pointed arched bell-openings on each face, each incorporating two lancets. Most distinctive is the 14th-century tall shingled broach-spire with a characteristic twist, which has become a prominent local landmark.

The chancel dates to the 13th century and contains a late 13th-century east window with triple cusped lancet tracery. The north wall features a 14th-century lancet with quatrefoil over twin cusped lancets on its west side and a 19th-century restored flat-headed window with twin cusped lancets on its east side. The north vestry, raised during 19th-century restoration, retains a 16th-century twin cusped light east window. The south side of the chancel has two restored 16th-century flat-headed windows (one with twin cusped lancets and one with triple cusped lancets), positioned between 19th-century restored stepped buttresses.

The nave is covered on the north side by a north aisle and late 13th-century chantry chapel. The north aisle features a single 13th-century pointed arched doorway with ogee mouldings and hoodmould, whilst to its west is a pointed window of twin cusped lancets and quatrefoil. The chantry chapel has two arched north windows with tracery of twin cusped lancets with sexfoil over, and an arched window with tracery of triple cusped lancets to the east.

The south side of the nave contains five simple rectangular clerestory windows with chamfered reveals. The 13th-century south aisle has three renewed broad lancets set between 19th-century restored stepped buttresses to the right of the porch and a single broad lancet to the left. Its east window is flat-headed with twin cusped lancets, and there is a single lancet in the west wall. The south door displays a 13th-century pointed arch with hoodmould featuring label stops, and capitals with stiff-leaf foliage, alongside a 19th-century door.

The projecting 13th-century south porch is a gabled stone structure. Its pointed-arched opening contains two orders of shafts and roll mould, with a hoodmould featuring label stops, capitals with stiff-leaf foliage, and heads. A reset stone stoup carved with a large head sits in the north-west corner. The porch has a plastered vaulted roof.

The interior of the chancel features a 14th-century three-bay double-tenoned purlin roof with two arch-braced trusses supporting a collar purlin with arched rafters. The trusses have moulded chamfered braces, cusped at the principals at head. The purlins are chamfered with cusped straight braces in the middle tier. A pointed chancel arch has three orders of shafts, two with shaft-rings, and rich stiff-leaf capitals with hoodmoulds on each side. A hagioscope sits in the south-east corner of the vestry.

The nave features a 14th-century five-bay double purlin roof of six arch-braced trusses with cusped collar and principals. The principals and arched braces are set on foreshortened hammer beams with wall posts featuring carved side braces mounted on stone corbels. Straight cusped wind braces in the middle roof tier, together with cusped purlin faces, form a trefoil pattern. Each rafter is braced to the upper collar and has a lower brace to the wall plate.

The north aisle is a late 13th-century five-bay structure incorporating two wide bays for the chantry chapel. The five-bay 13th-century arcade to the south has circular piers, circular capitals and abaci, and double-chamfered pointed arches with hoodmoulds. The tower arch has subsided to a horse-shoe shape and is a 19th-century restoration of the original Norman round arch with two inner rings inserted during the 19th-century restoration; the outer order has foliate and interlacing ornamented capitals on shafts, plain chamfered abaci, and a hoodmould.

The church contains memorials on the north wall of the chantry chapel to Edward Toldery (died 1761) and descendants, by Stephens of Worcester, and on the south wall of the chancel to James Compson (died 1765). There are six bells recast in 1757 by Rudhall of Gloucester, and a clock erected in 1772 by Mr Donisthorpe of Birmingham.

The building was repaired in 1793 by Telford and restored in 1874 by Scott. The church is renowned for its twisted spire, which forms a distinctive local landmark and has become the principal focus in general references to the town.