Parish Church Of St Mary

Parish Church of St Mary, Eaton Socon

A large parish church of 14th and 15th-century date, substantially restored in the 19th century and rebuilt following a devastating fire in 1930. The church was re-consecrated in 1932.

The building comprises a chancel with north-east vestry (formerly the organ chamber), a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, and a west tower. A north parish rooms complex was added in the late 20th century. The walls are constructed of rubble, flint and pebble with limestone dressings and lead roofs.

Externally, the church presents an almost entirely 15th-century appearance with low pitched roofs, embattled parapets and windows with vertical tracery, though much of what is visible represents post-fire 20th-century restoration executed along the original lines. The nave's west window retains 14th-century reticulated style tracery, apparently a pre-fire survival, and the south door is also 14th-century in style. The 1930s south porch, designed in 15th-century style with an outer opening and windows featuring hood moulds, replaced an earlier arrangement. The west tower, which survived the fire largely intact, comprises four stages. It features a moulded west door with a three-light Perpendicular window above it, followed by three trefoil-headed niches and an unusual lozenge-shaped window with trefoil tracery. The third stage carries a west-facing clock, and the bell stage has pairs of tall two-light openings on each face. There is no spire.

The interior is generously proportioned and Perpendicular in appearance, though almost entirely the work of Sir Albert Richardson following the fire, replicating many original details. Walls and stonework are painted and plastered, with exposed timber roofs. The five-bay north and south arcades have octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases. The chancel arch, tower arch and arch into the vestry are similarly detailed. Before the fire, the eastern bays of the nave arcades were recorded as 14th-century in origin.

Several fittings survived the fire. Most notably, a fine mid-12th-century Purbeck marble font with a square bowl featuring intersecting round arched arcading survives, now painted white, standing on a modern central shaft with four corner shafts. The square base may also be 12th-century. A 15th-century piscina and sedilia remain in the chancel, with the sedilia comprising three seats indicated by blind arcades in the dropped sill of the south-east chancel window. 17th-century communion rails with turned balusters are now positioned in the south chapel. A few fragments from the late 12th or early 13th century of uncertain provenance are preserved in a cupboard in the north aisle.

The remaining fittings date from Richardson's restoration and are particularly notable. The chancel screen, comprising three bays in Perpendicular style, features elegant openwork tracery including carved figures of angels and the Virgin Mary. It supports a rood loft with openwork panelling and large rood figures, accessed by a stair in the north-east chapel. A similar but less elaborate screen closes the tower arch, with plainer screens enclosing the south chapel.

The nave roof is Perpendicular in style with king posts and curved tie beam braces on corbels decorated with angels. The chancel roof is nearly flat, with rafters and purlins dividing it into panels boarded behind, with bosses at intersections. It is painted and gilded, with tie beams having curved braces on carved stone corbels. The aisle roofs are lean-to with principal rafters and arched braces, their spandrels filled with openwork tracery imitating pre-fire roofs. The outer wall posts stand on carved stone corbels, many featuring highly characterful portrait heads of people associated with the 1930s rebuilding—the horned figure beside Pan may represent the architect. The 1930s chancel reredos depicts a crucifixion with kneeling angels and adoring figures in classical dress. A 16th-century tapestry of the martyrdom of St Alban and another framed textile were acquired for the church by Richardson.

Eaton Socon was once the largest parish in Bedfordshire before county boundary changes and is mentioned in Domesday Book, though the church is not recorded at that date. The 12th-century font provides the earliest evidence of a church on the site. It was granted to the Knights Hospitallers in the late 12th or early 13th century. A fraternity dedicated to Corpus Christi was founded in the church in the mid-14th century, providing a chaplain for daily celebration, probably supplementing the vicar's services. This fraternity was dissolved at the Reformation. The church was almost wholly rebuilt in the 15th century and before the fire contained excellent 15th-century woodwork. Except for the south aisle and west tower, the entire church was gutted by fire in 1930 and was restored in traditional style by Sir Albert Richardson. An organ chamber was added to the north in 1886-89 to designs by J A Cory and C J Ferguson.