Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Newton Regis

This is a church of Early 13th-century origin with significant mid-14th-century additions and alterations. The building comprises a chancel, nave, west tower, and south porch, constructed in sandstone ashlar with roofs hidden by parapets with moulded cornices.

The chancel is 2 bays and dates to the late 13th and early 14th centuries, though it was remodelled in the mid-14th century and again in the late 14th century. It has a splay plinth and deep diagonal buttresses of two offsets. The east window is a 5-light example with late 13th-century cusped intersecting tracery and a sill course, set beneath a shallow-pitched gable. The south side contains a simple chamfered doorway with a plank door, a blocked segmental-arched doorway, and a blocked low-side window. A round-arched double-chamfered 2-light window with Decorated tracery and deeply splayed sill is also present. The clerestory above the original moulded cornice has straight-headed windows of 2 trefoiled lights on both north and south sides. The north side features a buttress of two offsets, windows with Y-tracery and deep splay sills, and an eastern window with a segmental arch; the longer western window is blocked up and plastered with a simple western arch. An 18th-century fluted lead rainwater head survives.

The south porch has buttresses of two offsets flush with the front and against the nave wall. Its doorway has an arch of two chamfered orders with single deep splay jambs, a parapet, and central gable. The return sides are fitted with 2-light cavetto-moulded mullion windows.

The nave is 3 bays and was rebuilt during the mid-14th century. It features an interior pointed tunnel vault with transverse ribs. The south side has a simply moulded ogee doorway with a round-arched plank door. The 3-light eastern window has reticulated tracery; the 2-light western window displays flowing tracery. The clerestory comprises 3-light and 2-light Perpendicular windows. An embattled parapet crowns the exterior. The north side has large east and central buttresses of three offsets. A bricked-up chamfered ogee doorway is present, with windows similar to the south side; the western clerestory window has an ogee arch. Some tracery has been renewed.

The west tower dates to the 14th century and comprises three low stages separated by moulded string courses. Diagonal buttresses of two offsets feature crocheted gables; the north-east buttress incorporates a squint to the nave. The first stage has 18th-century stepped battering to the west and a small basket-arch west window set in a recess. The second stage contains a boarded-up slit lancet window and a clock face. The third stage has chamfered 2-light bell-chamber openings with simple reticulated tracery. An embattled parapet surmounts the tower. An octagonal spire with a string course and two tiers of 2-light lucarnes (the lower tier with ogee gables) rises above; the north side has a lancet to the first stage.

The interior chancel contains a cinquefoiled piscina and an eastern sepulchre recess with a moulded arch. Both chancel and nave retain partly 15th-century Perpendicular roofs with moulded purlins and tie beams, with renewed rafters; the chancel has renewed purlins. The chancel arch is of two segmental pointed orders without imposts. The tower arch consists of one stepped and one chamfered order.

Fittings include an 18th-century fielded panelled pulpit, an 18th to early 19th-century Commandment board, and a 19th-century octagonal font. Medieval fragments of stained glass survive. A significant early 14th-century coffin lid in the chancel displays elaborate shallow relief carving depicting an effigy of a priest with attributes, two kneeling acolytes, two angels, and an elaborate canopy. A late 17th-century wall monument to Reverend John Guest, featuring columns and an angel, is also present.

The clerestories were restored in 1905 and 1908.