Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Priors Hardwick

This church dates from the late 13th century, with the nave added around 1300 and the porch built in the 14th century. The upper part of the tower was constructed in the 15th century. The building was substantially altered in 1868, when it was re-roofed, the nave largely rebuilt, and a vestry added.

The church is constructed of ironstone. The chancel and tower are built of squared rubble, while the nave, porch and vestry are of regular coursed stone. The roofs are tiled with 19th-century coped gable parapets.

The building comprises a high, wide chancel and nave, a west tower, a south porch and a north vestry. The chancel is 3 bays and the nave is 3 bays. The chancel has a moulded double splayed plinth with diagonal buttresses of 3 offsets and a sill course. The east window is unusual, consisting of 3 lancets with 3 spherical triangles; the lower part is blocked. The south doorway has 2 hollow-chamfered orders and a rich hood mould with splayed jambs and remains of stiff-leaf capitals, though the nook shafts are missing; it is fitted with a plank door. A short eastern window set high up has 4 lights with uncusped circles. The central and 3 north windows have Y-tracery. The south-west window originally had similar tracery but the top has been removed. All have deep, moulded splayed sills.

The south porch has a doorway with an outer chamfered and inner moulded order, a hood mould and return stops. It is fitted with double doors with wooden grilles. Small blocked ogee windows are cut from single blocks. The interior south doorway, dating from around 1300, has an outer hollow and inner moulded order with remains of a hood mould, and is fitted with a plank door. Stone benches line the porch walls.

The nave has east angle buttresses with 3 offsets and west diagonal buttresses with 2 offsets; the south-east buttress is dated 1868. The south-east window has Y-tracery, while the larger central 2-light and north windows have cusped Y- and intersecting tracery. The south-west window has 3 lights with cusped Y- and intersecting tracery.

The low square north vestry has a north window of paired trefoiled 2-light straight-headed windows. It is topped with a large moulded cornice and parapet and has a flat roof.

The tower has west angle buttresses with 2 offsets and a west lancet. The north and west sides display clock faces added in 1938, while the south side has a narrow ogee lancet. Bell openings consist of paired narrow trefoiled round-arched lights with stone louvres. The tower is finished with a moulded cornice, moulded crenellated parapet and simple pinnacles.

Interior

The interior walls are plastered. The east window has thin nook shafts, stiff-leaf capitals and imposts, and an elaborately moulded arch. The north and south chancel windows have rere arches with hood moulds; the northern one is continuous with head corbels. A moulded sill course runs across.

In the north wall is an aumbry without a door. The very fine late 13th-century piscina and two sedilia are carved with naturalistic foliage and feature 3 moulded orders with shafts. The piscina has a 19th-century openwork cinqfoiled arch and circular basin within an octagonal shelf, with a continuous hood mould and a head end stop. The chancel is roofed with a panelled wagon roof with moulded ribs.

The chancel arch is a very elaborate 19th-century Early English style feature of 3 orders with naturalistic carving. The nave has a continuous sill course and hood mould, which form a round arch above the south door and arch above the door to the vestry. The tower arch is plain. The roof is an arched braced type with cinqfoiled lancets and quatrefoils above the collar, supported by large stone corbels carved with medieval-style cowled figures.

Fittings include a plain 13th-century font, turned communion rails with pendants dating from around 1700, and the remains of a 15th-century incised slab monument.