Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a parish church of mixed date, combining early medieval fabric with substantial 19th-century reconstruction. The earliest elements are an early 13th-century west tower and a late 13th-century south chapel, both of which were incorporated into a comprehensive rebuilding carried out in 1850–52 by the architect G. E. Street. The building is constructed in sandstone ashlar with plain tile roofs featuring coped verges.

The church comprises a west tower, a three-bay nave with side aisles, a three-bay chancel, and a south chapel arranged in an integrated plan.

The west tower is the most substantial survivor from the early 13th century. It rises in two stages with diagonal buttresses that die into a second stage, offset inwards. The parapet, added in the 19th century, is crenellated with eight crocketed pinnacles. The first stage contains a single lancet window on each outer face, while the belfry stage is lit by paired lancets.

The south aisle dates largely from 1850–52, except for its west wall, which retains late 13th-century masonry containing a lancet window. Buttresses mark the bay divisions. The south windows are pointed and comprise two trefoil-headed lights with Decorated tracery; a scroll-moulded sill string runs across. The gabled south porch has gabled corner buttresses and a pointed outer arch of two wave-moulded orders with a hood mould terminating in carved heads. Inside, the doorway is pointed with roll and fillet moulding and a wave-moulded surround.

The south chapel is a late 13th-century structure attached to the east end of the south aisle. Buttresses mark the bay divisions. The central and eastern bays are lit by single lancets, the western bay by paired lancets and a 17th-century rectangular window with chamfered surround. A central pointed south door has two chamfered orders. The east window comprises three grouped lancets with roll-moulded surrounds.

The north aisle is entirely of 1850–52, with two and three-light pointed windows featuring Decorated tracery.

The chancel is also of 1850–52, lit by two and three-light north windows and a five-light east window, all pointed with Decorated tracery. The north side contains a monument to the Reverend Abdeli Seaton and his wife, died 1857. This monument is set within a segmental pointed recess with ball-flower surround and scroll-moulded hood.

The interior displays a five-bay nave arcade of 1850–52 with quatrefoil piers, each having thin shafts in the diagonals and moulded bases and capitals supporting pointed arches. These arcades imitate the four-bay south chancel arcade, whose arches have two wave-moulded orders. The nave roof features arch-braced scissor trusses. The aisle roofs have cusped arch-braced collars with tracery above the collars; the braces spring from stone corbels. The chancel has an arch-braced collar roof incorporating a collar purlin.

The south chapel retains important medieval liturgical fittings: a 13th-century piscina with pointed trefoil head and sunken spandrels, and sedilia with pointed arches and segment-moulded surrounds.

Two coronae (suspended canopies of honour) survive: one in the south chancel aisle of 1850–52 by Street, and another in the nave of 1892 by Hardman, Powell & Company.

Street designed a font comprising a cluster of squat, fillet-moulded cylindrical columns carrying an octagonal basin with panelled sides and ball-flower ornament around the base, with a conical wooden cover. He also provided a semi-octagonal stone pulpit with open traceried sides and ball-flower ornament. A full set of benches and stalls by Street survives. Three misericords are present: one carved with a Janus head, the other two with wyverns.

The stained glass of 1858 in the east windows of the chancel and north aisle, and in one of the northern chancel windows, is by William Wailes.