Parish Church of St Mary

Parish Church of St Mary

This is a parish church dating primarily from the 14th and 15th centuries, but extensively remodeled by the architect George Edward Street between 1856 and 1859, with minor alterations made later. The church is built of red sandstone ashlar with white sandstone used for all dressed work, and has a brown tiled roof with verge parapets.

The building comprises a west tower, nave, north aisle under a separate roof, north porch, a pent south aisle, south vestry and chancel.

The tower dates to the early 15th century and has four stages with two-stage angle buttresses. String courses run to the top stage only, with gargoyles at the centers. The parapet is crenellated with small angle crocketed pinnacles. The original west door is now blocked and replaced by a 19th-century two-light pointed window. Small square lights appear to the third stage, and the bell chamber has two-light pointed arch openings with trefoil heads and louvres between.

The north aisle and porch were designed by Street and consist of three bays divided by buttresses with cusped gablets. A string course runs at cill level. The windows on the north side vary between 2, 3 and 3 lights with plate, Geometric and Y-tracery. A rose window appears to the east and a three-light pointed window to the west, the latter featuring bas relief carved panels to the spandrels of the tracery below a quatrefoil, with a leopard gargoyle to the right.

The north porch has a pointed arch to both inner and outer doors with engaged squat columns to the springing. The moulding is cusped with ballflower and a label above. A quatrefoil side window lights the space.

Street designed the south aisle and vestry, which has angled buttresses and windows of 2-1-2-1-2 lights with trefoil-headed and plate tracery. A continuous range of three-light hipped dormers tops the pent roof, added in 1876 and executed in the Arts and Crafts style, not by Street. The vestry is gabled with a triangular apex window of trefoil and quatrefoil plate tracery. Elaborate strap hinges decorate the priest's door below. A large carved lion gargoyle clutches the buttresses between the aisle and vestry.

The chancel dates to the 14th century and is lower than the nave. It has been restored with two-light windows to north and south and a three-light east window, all with trefoil-headed lights and quatrefoil and mouchette tracery. A gabled dresser tomb is engaged to the south with a labelled three-centred arch to the recess and a diapered edge to the table top.

The interior of the nave comprises three bays with north and south arcades. The south arcade is original, with octagonal columns and moulded capitals supporting pointed arches. The wall is rendered with a plain arch to the west. The remainder of the interior and all fittings are by Street, including the north arcade with pointed, heavily moulded arches. A pointed and heavily moulded chancel arch springs from corbelled stub columns. The roof is collar trussed with arch braces, toothed lower faces, cusped wind braces and struts forming trefoils.

The north aisle has squat engaged marble columns rising to the springing of the rear arch of the east window to Bridgeman Chapel and a pointed arch to the chancel. The latter features heavily undercut stiff leaf capitals on double columns. The chancel has an inlaid marble floor and a roof matching the nave but with a brattished wall plate, which continues into the vestry. The sedilia, piscina and aumbry are trefoil-headed with marble columns. A circular font stands on engaged marble columns with a carved spike cover. An octagonal pulpit rests on a similar base. All these fittings are by Street. A part-painted timber reredos of arcaded screen design dates to 1876. A circular brass communion rail and a brass and wrought-iron screen of floral diaper pattern separate the chancel from the north aisle. 19th-century choir stalls feature poppy head finials. A painted timber altar with slender columns at the angles, capped by armorials, serves Bridgeman Chapel.

The stained glass includes mid-19th-century windows by Wailes in the aisles, Hardman in the chancel, and Burlison and Grylls in the east window, alongside a 20th-century east window to the north aisle.

Monuments include a framed bas-relief marble angel to the north and a German wooden bas relief of the Nativity to the south of the chancel. Three inscribed oval and circular monuments in marble and stone to the Dickenson family are dated 1776–1849. An engraving dated 1797 in the vestry shows the church before Street's alterations.