Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church with origins in the 11th century. The church is mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, though the present building comprises elements from different periods: the chancel dates from the 13th century, the nave with north and south aisles from the 16th century, and the west tower from 1635.

West Tower

The four-stage west tower, dated 1635 on a stone panel, is built of limestone ashlar. It features an embattled parapet with crocketed pinnacles at the corners and foliate ornament and gargoyles to the main cornice. The tower has a splayed plinth and four-stage set-back buttressing, with a newel staircase in the south-west corner. The door, window, and bell-stage openings all date to 1635.

Nave and Aisles

The nave, constructed in the 15th century of pebblestone, was rebuilt with coursed limestone at its west end. It has a 17th-century parapet of stone with moulded cornice, six gargoyles, and three 18th-century lead rainwater heads. Each side of the clerestory contains five windows, each of two cinquefoil lights.

The south aisle, also 15th-century pebblestone on a splayed plinth, shares the nave's parapet, cornice, and gargoyles. It has five window bays divided by buttresses, each containing a window of four lights with vertical tracery in a four-centred arch. The east window is similar but has five lights.

The south porch is of pebblestone with a parapetted gable end of coursed limestone ashlar and diagonal buttressing. The coping is surmounted by a cross with a small attached shaft extending downward to a gabled niche with a lily pot. The outer arch is four-centred and flanked by two niches on moulded corbels with ribbed vaulting. The inner arch is two-centred and of three moulded orders. The original plank door has moulded cover strips and fragments of 15th-century blind tracery.

The north aisle is similar in design to the south aisle.

Chancel

The chancel dates from the 13th century and is mainly pebblestone with a 19th-century slate roof. The south wall contains a 13th-century south doorway and a 14th-century window with a low side, along with two restored 14th-century windows. The east window is a 19th-century restoration of a 13th-century four-light window. The north wall has two late 13th-century windows, each of two trefoil lights in two-centred heads.

Interior

The north and south arcades each comprise five two-centred arches of two moulded orders, springing from columns of grouped shafts, quatrefoil in plan, on moulded bases with half-octagonal capitals to each shaft.

The nave has a 16th-century roof of five bays and six trusses with cambered tie beams on jackposts and original carved corbels. The north and south aisles have 16th-century roofs with carved bosses at intersections of main beams and rafters, similar jackposts and corbels to those of the nave roof.

The chancel arch matches the design of the north and south arcades. The chancel has late 13th-century blind arcading to both north and south walls. The north wall contains two bays in two-centred, roll-moulded arches, springing from a corbel carved with foliate ornament and one attached column of three grouped shafts with moulded capital. A 13th-century doorway to the 19th-century vestry adjoins this wall. The south wall has similar blind arcading but in four bays, with the bay adjoining the south doorway being narrower.

An early 14th-century piscina in the south wall of the chancel has a trefoil head, gabled and carved with foliate ornament. The gable was originally flanked by crocketed pinnacles, now eroded.

The chancel contains six finely carved choir stalls with misericords. A 14th-century screen separates the chancel from the nave. A communion rail of late 17th-century date has turned balusters and a moulded rail.

Monuments and Fittings

A wall monument to Sir John Bernard, Baronet (died 1682), by William Kidwell, is located in the south aisle. In the south wall of the west tower is a wall monument to John Miller (died 1681) and his son Thomas (died 1683). The font, of 15th-century date, has an octagonal bowl with carved faces on a later stem. A floor slab in the nave commemorates Paulina Jackson (died 1689), a member of the Pepys family.