Parish Church Of St Mary

Parish Church of St Mary, Eynesbury

This is an important Anglican church of mainly 12th and 13th-century date, with the tower being a dated rebuilding of 1688. The building underwent extensive restoration in 1857 and the chancel was extended in the mid-20th century. The architectural style is principally Early English and Perpendicular Gothic, with the tower possibly representing an example of Gothic survival.

The church is constructed of cobble stone walling interspersed with Clunch blocks, with Barnack limestone dressings, many of which date from the 19th-century restoration work. The tower is of ashlar limestone, believed to incorporate re-used 13th-century masonry. The roof coverings include peg tiles to the chancel and porch, lead sheeting to the nave, and copper sheeting to the north and south aisles.

The building has a mainly linear plan, comprising a nave with north and south aisles, a north aisle porch, a tower at the south-east corner of the south aisle, a chancel, and a mid-20th-century extension to the south side of the chancel.

The north elevation features a five-bay aisle rising from a plinth with continuous moulded string courses. The central aisle porch has a steeply-pitched roof and a tall pointed-arched doorway with moulded surround. Flanking the porch are tall pointed-arched two-light windows with quatrefoil heads, with shallow stepped buttresses between them. Above, set back behind a low moulded ashlar aisle parapet, are five two-light clerestory windows with Y-traceried heads. The west end has diagonal buttresses to the aisle corners and a tall pointed-arched west doorway beneath a wide three-light window with decorated tracery. Stepped buttresses mark the junctions of the aisles and the taller central nave gable. The south aisle is lower and narrower than its north counterpart, with both pointed and flat-arched windows to its south wall. A pointed-arched doorway is set in the central bay, with a two-light window to its east and the tower further east. The tower projects at a slight angle to the nave and aisles, possibly indicating a rebuilding on the footprint and alignment of an earlier structure. The tower has five stages and a crenellated parapet with corner pinnacles. Clasping buttresses extend to the base of the bell stage, which has a two-light louvred opening to each façade. Two doorways at ground floor level to the tower west wall provide access, the northern one giving entry to the tower spiral stair. The chancel has a tall stepped three-light lancet window to its gable and diagonal buttresses to the corners. The mid-20th-century extension is built against the south wall of the chancel.

The Eynesbury War Memorial (Grade II), which stands adjacent to the church, has no dedicatory inscription or names on the memorial itself. Instead, the dedicatory inscription is incised and gilded onto a slate plaque set into the church wall, reading: "THIS MEMORIAL CROSS WAS ERECTED BY THE PARISHIONERS / TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF / THE BRAVE MEN OF EYNESBURY / WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE / GREAT WAR – 1914 – 1919."

The interior features nave arcades of different dates. The north arcade has circular columns with squared abaci and capitals decorated with scalloped, pointed leaf and stiff leaf ornamentation. The south arcade has octagonal columns with broached hollow-chamfered arch mouldings. The south aisle is of narrow width, with a 13th-century arched opening providing access to the tower and a buttress-like projection to the west of the opening. Each aisle has a two-light window either side of the wide 13th-century chancel arch. The nave has a trussed roof with small arch braces and posts carried on moulded wall corbels.

The church retains a set of medieval bench ends in the north aisle with traceried fronts and ends embellished with eclectic representations of human heads, birds, animals and beasts. The pulpit is of late 17th-century date and includes inlay work to its panelling and an angle post decorated with garlands and cherubs' heads.