Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I listed building, primarily dating from the 14th century. It is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings. The church features a chancel with a north vestry, a nave, a south aisle, a south porch, and a west tower topped by a short broach spire. The chancel was remodeled in the mid-14th century and retains a 13th-century door in its south wall, along with a 14th-century piscina and double sedilia on the south wall, and an Easter sepulchre on the north wall. The vestry is likely from the 14th century. The chancel arch is also from the 14th century. The nave contains a blocked 13th-century doorway and a 19th-century organ chamber on the north wall. The clerestory dates from the 15th century, and the roof retains some 15th-century timbers, which are adorned with roughly carved human heads and shields. There is a 14th-century tomb recess with an effigy on the north wall, and the south arcade consists of four bays supported by projecting corbels resting on grotesque figures. The south aisle, which was widened in the 14th century, includes remnants of a 13th-century east lancet. The south wall features a 14th-century piscina and a tomb canopy with a crocketed gable and pinnacles. There are fragmentary wall paintings, including St James on the east wall, which is partially obscured by a memorial from 1792, and St Christopher along with a masonry pattern on the south wall. The church also has a 15th-century octagonal font with a crocketed conical wooden cover, a pulpit, and some pews dating from around 1500. The 15th-century south porch, along with the south aisle, nave, and chancel, is topped with crenellated parapets. The west tower, built in the mid-14th century, has three stages and features a band of carved foliage, animals, and grotesque heads beneath the spire eaves.