Church Of St Milburga

The Church of St. Milburga is a building of the 12th and 13th centuries, with a south chapel dating from around 1400. It was restored around 1881, and the timber porch and bell turret were likely constructed during that time. The church is built of regular coursed lias stone with limestone dressings and irregular quoins, the chapel featuring alternating thick and thin courses. It has old tile roofs, with some 20th-century tiles to the north, and 19th-century coped gables.

The church comprises a nave and chancel combined, a south chapel, a porch, and a west turret. A medieval ribbed and studded south door is set within a Romanesque doorway featuring a simple arch and shafts with cushion capitals. A blocked Romanesque north door is also present. The nave has Early English lancet windows – one to the south, two to the west, and one to the north-east. Two 2-light 19th-century Decorated windows are on the north side. A single west buttress supports the nave. The turret has two Perpendicular traceried openings on each face. The chancel features a simple Decorated east window and a straight-headed 2-light Decorated south window, likely renewed. A lancet and a unique window of two tiny steep lancets, cut from a single block of yellow Campden stone, are in the north wall, possibly dating to the 12th century or earlier. The chapel is of Perpendicular style, with a much-restored 5-light east window, straight-headed 2 and 3-light windows, and a small door to the south.

Inside, the church has boarded wagon roofs with thin ribs, carved bosses, and two decorative roof arches of thin, elaborate Gothic openwork to the chancel, which are likely from the early 19th century. The chancel includes a decorated piscina with a plain canopy curving forward and a nodding ogee arch. Surviving fragments of early 15th-century oak screens form a chancel screen and a side screen to the chapel, exhibiting moulded rails and muntins. An encaustic tile floor from the 19th century is present. A 2-bay Perpendicular arcade with octagonal piers leads to the chapel. The chapel incorporates fragments of old stained glass set within its windows. A piscina features an embattled top. A chest tomb in the center of the chapel holds very fine brasses commemorating Thomas de Cruwe (died 1411) and his wife, featuring figures under ogee-headed canopies with inscriptions, badges, and coats of arms – all in remarkably good detail. Two small late 16th-century memorial brasses are also present. The nave contains a 19th-century font.