Parish Church Of St George

Parish Church of St George

A parish church with mixed medieval dates, featuring substantial reused 12th-century material. The central tower, north and south transepts, and chancel date from the 13th century, while the nave was rebuilt in the 15th century. The south porch was added in 1742 (according to Cole) and subsequently rebuilt with an adjoining vestry in the 19th century. The building underwent major restoration by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1876.

The walls are constructed of flint and pebble rubble with limestone and clunch dressings, and the roofs are covered in slate. The church follows a cruciform plan, viewed here from the south elevation.

The chancel has been refaced with diagonal two-stage buttresses and a parapet gable. It retains restored 15th-century windows and a 13th-century priest's door, with internal evidence of the original chamfered splays of 13th-century windows. The crossing tower comprises three stages, embattled with a moulded string course stepped up below a belfry window of two lights containing a quatrefoil in a two-centre arch. A lead-covered spirelet, possibly of 15th-century date, rises from the tower, with a vice forming an irregular polygon to the west corner.

The south transept has a diagonal buttress and gable parapet, with a restored 13th-century lancet in the east wall and a modern south window that retains a 14th-century shafted internal opening. The nave is embattled with three buttressed bays; its two south windows are restored 15th-century examples of three cinquefoil lights with vertical tracery in four-centred heads, matching those on the north side. The 19th-century south porch frames a restored 15th-century south doorway with a moulded four-centred head, label, and jambs.

Interior: The tower arches opening to the nave, chancel, and transepts are of similar 13th-century design, with two-centred profiles and three chamfered orders. The responds have two chamfered and hollow-chamfered orders with moulded bases and capitals of clunch. A 15th-century tower door is present. Piscinae with square and round bowls in chamfered recesses, dated to the 13th or 14th century, are visible, as is a 15th-century niche with canopy. A wall painting appears on the south jamb of a lancet in the east wall of the north transept.

The font is a 12th-century piece, a large square bowl of Purbeck marble with round-headed arches in slight relief on its sides, supported on a round shaft and fitted with 19th-century outer pillars. A 15th-century screen of three bays is preserved. The roofs are 19th-century replacements. Early 15th-century glass survives in the head of a window in the north nave wall.

Monuments and floor slabs constitute a significant historical record. Two Purbeck marble indents remain, one from the 15th century. Two 13th-century coffins and a coffin lid with incised crosses and stepped bases are present. The south transept contains a classical wall monument with black painted columns supporting a frieze inscribed with the epitaph of Edward Lucas of Bassets in Thriplow, Esquire (died 17 July 1601), who married Mary, eldest daughter of Sir Nicholas Heron of Edgcom in Croydon, Surrey. The monument features five family figures recessed below two arches, with family arms set in strapwork above the entablature.

The north transept holds a white marble slab by Gilbert of Cambridge commemorating Mary Renovard (died 1827), and a pedimented grey and black marble slab for John Perkins (died 1750) and his wife Mary (died 1746), with a cartouche of arms below.

Floor slabs mark burials throughout the church: in the chancel, Rev John Jenks (1849) and Katherine Ducfeilds (Whale) (1612); in the north transept, Ambrose Bening (1720) and his wife Susannah (1711), Ambrose Bening (1819), Mary Perkinse (1746), and George Clarke Bradbury Berry (1821); in the south transept, John Perkins (1750), Rev William Bening (1792), Anne Bening (1716), Ambrose Bening (1720), C.S., daughter of Rev Butler Berry (1818), Mary Berry (1806), Francis Gunning (1778), and Margaret Desborough (1799).