Church Of St Martin

Church of St Martin, Holt

Parish church of mid-12th-century origin, with alterations in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, and restored in 1859. Built in sandstone rubble, part coursed, and sandstone ashlar, with tiled roofs and gable-end parapets. The building comprises a west tower, nave with opposing doorways, south chapel, chancel and vestry.

The 15th-century west tower is in three stages with string courses to the lower stage, above and below the belfry stage. Corner angled buttresses with offsets rise to the second stage, and small flat buttresses on corbels sit at the belfry stage. The west window has three lights with hood mould and head label stops. The second stage contains single-light openings filled with pierced stone louvres; the belfry stage has two-light windows similarly filled with pierced stone louvres. The tower is topped by an embattled parapet with corner crocketted finials.

The north elevation of the nave has buttresses with offsets at each end and below the easternmost window. This window dates from the 19th-century restoration and echoes earlier designs, its outer arch enriched with cable moulding and continuing as a frieze beneath the sills of two 12th-century windows with wide splayed reveals. Between them sits the north doorway, also 12th-century, a round-headed opening of two orders with rich chevron moulding and nookshafts with figured capitals. The left capital illustrates the fable of the Fox and the Crane both drinking from a cask. The opposing doorway in the south elevation is of similar but richer design, with a round arch featuring horizontal and vertical chevrons, double nookshafts with cushion capitals and grotesque heads. A 19th-century window stands to the west, detailed in the 12th-century manner.

The south chapel was added in the 14th century, adjoining the upper nave and lower chancel, with its own tiled roof. The south elevation has buttresses with offsets at the ends and to the right of centre. Three windows light the elevation: a 3-light 14th-century east window and three 14th-century 2-light windows in the south wall, with a blocked light between the westernmost ones. A string course stops a few feet on either side of this blocked light, and an adjacent buttress appears to be later, suggesting a small building may once have stood against this section of wall. The west elevation contains a small, blocked, pointed arched light, probably a hagioscope, above which the string course forms a hood.

The chancel is the original 12th-century structure, lengthened in the 13th century. Buttresses with offsets stand at the east end. A 15th-century 2-light window lights the east end, while three round-headed single-light windows appear in the north elevation. The sills of the central and westernmost windows were lengthened in the 13th century, cutting through an embattled moulding. A 19th-century gabled vestry projects between these latter two windows, with a parapet featuring a saddlestone and two round-headed lights in its north gable end. The south elevation contains a 13th-century round-headed light at its east end.

The interior features a 12th-century chancel arch with chevron mouldings and a sunk label above enriched with medallions and a beast's head at the apex. Double nookshafts and half-columns to each jamb carry capitals decorated with scalloped and interlace ornament, the north column carved with grotesque heads. The eastern face repeats the design in simpler form.

A 14th-century south arcade comprises two bays with round-headed arches of two chamfered orders. The central pier is octagonal with moulded capital and base; the responds are octagonal to within four feet of ground level and square below. The west face of the upper part of the east respond features a pointed arch-headed recess. A similar archway into the chapel opens from the south chancel wall.

Waggon roofs cover the nave and chancel. The chapel roof features two intermediate queen-post trusses with arch braces above the collar, positioned to the sides of the posts and beneath the tie-beam ends.

The 12th-century font is drum-shaped on a chevron-incised base with a short, thick stem of spiral fluting. The bowl base carries cable moulding and a beaded spiral band; the bowl itself is decorated with grotesque heads whose expanded mouths are joined by swags. A 19th-century pulpit displays elaborate Romanesque detailing.

The chancel contains a 15th-century trefoil-headed piscina. Opposite, in the north wall, stands a 12th-century round-headed niche, defaced when the chancel was lengthened. To its left is a 19th-century round-headed enriched doorway to the vestry. Two 13th-century arched niches flank the altar. Brass neo-Romanesque altar rails feature thick columns with decorated capitals.

Above the chancel arch is a segmental mosaic, a 19th-century copy of the 5th-century Good Shepherd mosaic from the Mausoleum of Galla Placida in Ravenna, inscribed "In memory of William, Earl of Dudley, who restored this church in 1859". Further mosaics appear behind the altar and on either side as large representations of angels; the right angel is signed F Novo, Venezia 1886. A mosaic of vines decorates the area behind the altar. On the west wall of the chapel hangs a tabard emblazoned with the Brayley arms and quarterings, and a parish chest stands in the chapel.

The south chapel contains a 15th-century life-size effigy of a woman with a lion at her feet and a coat of arms, believed to represent the daughter of Sir John Beauchamp; the effigy was repainted in the 19th century. The chapel walls bear memorials to Henry Bromley (died 1683), with Ionic columns flanking an inscribed tablet and the Bromley crest in a pediment above; and to Mercy Bromley (died 1704), wife of Henry Bromley, with a tablet flanked by spiral columns and grieving cherubs, with a relief of putti and the Bromley crest above. The south chancel wall displays a memorial to Sir Henry Bromley (died 1615), flanked by Ionic columns with two angels and the Bromley crest above. The north chancel wall holds three early 19th-century memorials. Six ledger slabs lie on the chancel floor, including one to John Washbourne (died 1619), a former rector, along with some medieval tile remains. The chapel floor contains five ledger slabs and additional medieval tile remains.

Medieval stained glass survives as fragments of a 15th-century Annunciation in the chapel. The east window dates to 1892 and is by Kempe. The central window in the north chancel wall contains fragments of medieval glass.

This church is considered one of the most important and profusely decorated Romanesque churches in Worcestershire.