Church Of St Mary

Church of Saint Mary

This church in Astley originated as a chapel of ease in the 12th century and has since been extensively modified. The building was partly rebuilt in the 15th or 16th century, with a tower and probably a vestry added in 1837, and the nave and chancel restored in 1883. The structure is built of dressed yellow and grey sandstone, with 19th-century work in tooled grey sandstone ashlar, and has a plain tile roof.

The building comprises a nave and chancel in one space, a north vestry, and a west tower. The tower rises in three stages with a plinth, diagonal buttresses featuring chamfered offsets, and a chamfered string course between the first and second stages on the west face. The belfry has a chamfered offset, a moulded parapet string, and a battlemented parapet with chamfered coping topped by a pyramidal cap with weathervane. The belfry openings are louvred 2-light windows with Y-tracery, chamfered reveals, and hoodmoulds with carved heads as stops. The west front displays a circular clock to the second stage and a 2-light square window with a stone mullion and hoodmould. The main west doorway comprises a pair of doors with panelled tracery, a moulded Tudor arch with trefoil-panelled spandrels, and a square hoodmould with carved heads as stops. A first-stage south lancet window is chamfered.

The nave and chancel have a chamfered plinth, 14th or 15th-century diagonal buttresses to east and west with chamfered offsets, and large old buttresses to north and south, also with chamfered offsets. The 19th-century work includes chamfered stone eaves and parapeted gable ends, with a finial at the east apex. The south side of the nave contains a small ogee cinquefoil-headed window with carved spandrels (reportedly dated 1568, though illegible at the time of survey in January 1987), a restored 15th or 16th-century square-headed window with two round-arched lights, and a blocked 12th-century doorway. The latter features one order of shafts with stiff leaf capitals and an arch decorated with square chevron ornament. The chancel has two square-headed windows each of two cinquefoil-headed lights—the right-hand one from the 15th or 16th century—and probably a 16th-century priest's doorway with rounded reveals and a boarded door, positioned centrally. The north side has two square-headed windows in the nave, each with two cinquefoil-headed lights. The east end features a 19th-century window of three trefoil-headed lights with intersecting cusped tracery and chamfered reveals. The north vestry displays chamfered stone eaves, a parapeted gable, and a north window of two cinquefoil-headed lights beneath a square head.

The interior contains a 19th-century three-bay nave roof, possibly incorporating some older elements. The roof features a moulded wall plate, trusses with large chamfered tie-beams (possibly older), 19th-century pierced wooden brackets resting on shaped stone corbels, king posts, and chamfered principal rafters, with a ridge piece and single purlins. The two-bay chancel roof is similar but includes a central chamfered arch-braced truss springing from stone corbels. The east window has a chamfered rear arch. A chamfered depressed-arched vestry doorway is accompanied by an arched niche to its left. A 2-light window appears in the second stage of the tower.

A porch beneath the tower features side benches and two panelled doors entering the nave, both with panelled reveals, architrave, and cornice. The 19th-century fittings include a painted reredos, altar rails, a wooden rood screen of 2:1:2 bays with cusped openings and shafts to the loft with a rood above, a wooden pulpit, and an octagonal stone font with quatrefoil panels. A stone Gothic memorial tablet commemorates Anne, wife of John Bishton of Astley House, who died on 31 March 1838. The tablet features a cinquefoil arch with flanking pinnacles and a crocketed finial. Some 19th-century stained glass is present.

The chancel appears to have been added or rebuilt at a later date, probably in the 15th or 16th century, as evidenced by straight joints to the north and south.