Old Church Of St Mary

The Old Church of St Mary is a 13th-century church, largely comprising the chancel of a former larger building. Reused 14th-century windows are visible on the south side, and the church has undergone later alterations, including the removal of the nave and rebuilding of the west wall and west porch in 1875.

The church is constructed of lias stone with a plain-tile roof. The exterior features a chamfered plinth on the north and south sides, and buttresses with offsets at the angles and between bays. The west porch has double plank doors set within a double-chamfered, 4-centred pointed arch. A small lancet window is present to the west end, alongside a coped gable and bellcote with a sundial dated 1835. The south side displays three stepped, trefoil-headed, ogeed lancet windows, likely reused from the original nave, followed by a pair of similar trefoil-headed lancets with sunk spandrels. The north side has a pair of trefoil-headed lancets in the easternmost bay. The east end is distinguished by a three-light window with intersecting tracery, a hoodmould, and chamfered mullions and sill.

Inside, the entrance arch is double-chamfered with roll and nail-head moulding on banded shafts with palm and vine-ornamented capitals and water-holding bases, and a roll-moulded hoodmould. The inner side displays a roll-moulded basket arch. Windows have wide sills and splayed jambs. A rectangular aumbry is set into the south wall at the east end, and late medieval tiles are laid on the floor at the east end. The church contains ornate wrought-iron altar railings dated 1735, gifted by church wardens J Ward and T Williams, and a hanging wrought-iron candelabra. Jacobean panelling remains on the north and south walls, and a 15th-century octagonal font stands on a plain shaft. A wall monument in an English Renaissance style commemorates Francis Throckmorton, who died in 1617. An inscription plaque records the chapel’s reconsecration by the Bishop of Worcester in 1875. The building forms a group with Old Chapel Cottages, Chapel Lane and is documented in various historical publications.