Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin, Astley

This Grade I listed church is a substantial medieval and post-medieval parish church comprising a chancel, nave, west tower, and south porch. The building has a complex architectural history spanning several centuries.

The nave was originally built in 1343 as the chancel of a collegiate church founded by Sir Thomas Astley of Astley Castle. It is constructed of coursed squared sandstone, largely rendered, with a plain-tile roof. The chancel and tower were rebuilt in 1608 for Richard Chamberlaine, who re-established the building as a parish church. The chancel is built of regular coursed grey sandstone with a slate roof, whilst the tower is of regular coursed red sandstone. A small timber-framed porch with rendered infill was added in the 17th century.

The nave displays Decorated style architecture. It is 3 bays long with a crocketed gable parapet. The exterior features splay plinth and moulded sill course with diagonal and other buttresses of 2 cusped gableted offsets with carved heads; the diagonal buttresses retain crocketed pinnacles. A large blocked 7-light Perpendicular window occupies the north side, with panel tracery in a moulded ogee arch with fleurons and finial. Above this is a blocked 14th-century rose window. Large 3-light windows with flowing tracery in two alternating patterns have moulded ogee arches with finials and hood moulds with return stops. The exterior features a moulded cornice and corbel table decorated with ballflower, shields and Tudor flower. An open-fronted south porch below a central window contains a moulded stone doorway with a 19th-century ribbed door. A blocked north doorway below the central window formerly led to collegiate buildings.

The chancel is 2 bays long in late Perpendicular style. It has a very shallow gable and a datestone dated 1608 below the cornice on the south side. The exterior features a moulded plinth with diagonal and side buttresses of 2 offsets. 3-light windows have panel tracery and transoms with deep hollow and roll-moulded jambs and hood moulds. The large east window has carved stops, shield panels with cornices flanking the hood mould, and a shield with hood mould above, with large shaped panels to either side. Angles have a short section of cornice. North and south sides have blind western windows of circa 1800 with cusped Y-tracery, rendered infill and remains of carved stops. Eastern windows have return stops. A moulded sill course and cornice with frieze of shields, Tudor flower and other ornament run across the walls. The parapet has 8 pierced trefoiled arches. A blocked Tudor-arched doorway on the north side sits below the eastern window. Two stones in the top left corner bear the initials RM and RC.

The west tower comprises 4 stages with splay plinth and courses between each stage. It has clustered diagonal, north and south buttresses of 4 offsets, with a shield to the first offset. The first stage is lower to the west than to other sides and contains double-leaf doors in a low moulded 4-centred doorway with hood mould and two pieces of foliage carving above. The second stage has a mullioned window of 3 round-arched lights with drip mould. The third stage displays a 3-light window with panel tracery and transom, with paired shields of arms at the springing and shield panels to left and right. The fourth stage has a straight-headed bell-chamber opening of 3 trefoiled lights with transom and louvres. An embattled parapet has angle and central crocketed pinnacles. The north side has a straight-headed triple-chamfered window of 2 trefoiled lights to the second stage. The south side has a clock face to the fourth stage.

The interior is plastered throughout. The chancel has a 3-bay 4-centred plaster barrel vault with Gothick blind tracery, probably of circa 1800, though the arches between each bay and the moulded cornice with foliage corbels are likely early 17th-century. The former east window shows blocked panel tracery. A moulded 4-centred chancel arch with hood mould pierced through it separates the chancel from the nave. To the nave side, the former window has a moulded arch and finial, hood mould with head stops, and flanking canopied niches on head corbels.

The nave has a 17th-century wood-panelled ceiling with moulded ribs and carved bosses bearing coats of arms, mostly replaced with the arms of the Newdigates after 1676. Inner panels carry shields. A blocked north doorway has a moulded ogee arch with fleurons and head finial. Windows feature ogee arches with finials and hood moulds with head stops. The tower arch comprises 3 moulded orders with hood mould bearing a head stop to the north. A 19th-century arch inserted inside the tower has a glazed screen above, and a 19th-century wall to the west features double-leaf doors in a moulded doorway with a glazed screen above.

Notable fittings include an early 17th-century altar table, a wrought-iron communion rail of circa 1700, and 19th-century chancel stalls. The pulpit and reading desk are made up from late 17th and early 18th-century carved and fielded panels. The nave contains a set of stalls of circa 1400 comprising 8 bays with one-bay returns. The canopies have cinqfoiled round arches and slender shafts with shaft-rings. The backs feature contemporary paintings of the Apostles and Prophets, considerably over-painted, and painted friezes. The seats have misericords carved with foliage, a dog, a pig, a woman's head, a lion and other motifs. 17th-century nave panelling is also present. An octagonal font has a moulded base and capital. 19th-century oil lamps hang in the nave.

The church contains stained glass of 14th and 15th-century date in the chancel windows and nave tracery. Numerous early 17th-century text panels with elaborate painted surrounds adorn the walls; those flanking the east window were probably repainted in the early 19th century.

Monuments in the chancel include John Newdegate (1666) on the east wall to the left, with a black marble convex oval panel and white marble wreath with winged head and skull and crossbones. To the right is a monument to GUIL WYAT STB (1685) with a horizontally-set convex cartouche. On the north wall is a panel with cornice commemorating Mary Conyers (1797). The south wall carries an open book in plain frame with cornice and apron to Frances (1809) and Francis Newdegate (1835), with a sarcophagus bearing a coat of arms. The tower contains 3 alabaster effigies: Sir Edward Grey, Lord Ferrers (1457); Elizabeth Grey, Lady Lisle (circa 1483); and Cecily Grey(?), Marchioness of Dorset (circa 1530). A part of a brass of a lady of circa 1400 is also present.