Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church dating from 1870-1, designed by T. Nicholson on a medieval site. It is constructed of roughly coursed rock-faced limestone rubble with chamfered plinth and ashlar dressings, topped with graded slate roofs. The roofs feature ornamental cresting and foliated iron crosses to the gables.

The church comprises a nave, a west bellcote, a chancel, a south porch, and a north vestry, all executed in a Decorated style. The nave has three bays, with a broad cusped lancet window in the centre. To the right is a window of two cusped lights with head-stops and a quatrefoil above, breaking the eaves. The gabled porch in the west bay features a moulded ogee arch to the outer tie beam, with rubblestone side walls. The south doorway is Decorated-style, with a hoodmould and head-stops. The gabled bellcote has twin cusped openings housing bells and stone crosses to the east and west, with a shaft that has a tall cusped lancet and a hoodmould with head-stops. The north side mirrors the south, except for the porch and the inclusion of an integral stone stack with an octagonal shaft in the north-east corner.

The chancel’s south side has broad, trefoil-headed lancet windows with a continuous moulded cill band. The east window, of three cusped lights with two flanking quatrefoils surrounding a central sexfoil, has a hoodmould and head-stops. The north side of the chancel has a similar trefoil-headed lancet, with a lean-to vestry attached to the west. The vestry has a trefoil-headed doorway on its north side and broad cusped lancets to its east and west.

Inside, the nave has a trussed rafter roof with scissor bracing in twelve short bays. Trusses, resting on carved stone corbels, are positioned either side of the easternmost windows. The chancel has a similar roof in nine bays. The pointed chancel arch has a hoodmould with head-stops and elaborately carved Byzantine-style corbelled responds. Interior fittings and furnishings, seemingly all from the same period, include pews, choir stalls, an elaborately carved stone pulpit and font, encaustic tiles to the floor, a reredos, and a harmonium. Stained glass in the east window commemorates Henry Yelverton Beale (died 1869), with similar glass in other chancel windows. No monuments of historical significance are present.

Historically, the church was originally a dependent chapelry of Clun, but Hopton Castle became a separate parish in the 13th century.