Church Of St Mary

Parish Church. The largely late 14th-century Church of St Mary was restored in 1844. It is constructed of coursed pebbles, dressed clunch, and 17th-century brick, with roofs concealed by parapets. The building comprises a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, north and south porches, and a chancel.

The west tower is of three stages with restored angle buttressing and embattlements. Restored openings with pierced boarding to shutters are visible on each side of the bell stage. The nave has a restored blocked parapet, and an octagonal, embattled stair turret projects from the northeast angle. The south aisle features 14th and 15th-century windows with three cinquefoil lights arranged in four-centred arches, divided by a transom and with vertical tracery to the heads. The south porch has a two-centred outer arch and an inner order with ogee moulding on engaged shafts. The inner arch is also two-centred, with continuous hollow and roll moulding, and quatrefoil and dagger tracery to the spandrels. The chancel has a restored window to the south and a similar window to the north.

Internally, the tower arch and nave arcade are of late 14th or early 15th-century date, featuring four bays with two-centred arches of three orders on square columns, diagonally set with half-octagonal shafts. The roof is probably from the later 15th century and incorporates short kingposts on shallow braced tiebeams carried on jackposts and moulded stone corbels. An original late 14th-century doorway and door in the north aisle leads to the rood loft staircase, featuring a hollow-moulded two-centred arch in a square head with dagger tracery, and retaining original ironwork. The south aisle includes a chapel at the east end, where a carved corbel for an image remains, and a large alabaster wall monument, likely dating to around 1631 and commemorating members of the Fryer family, attributed to W Wright. The chancel arch is similar to the nave arcade. A restored clunch screen, embattled and in two stages with six cinquefoil bays, is present in the chancel; the centre bays are wider and feature an ogee arch to a doorway. The lower stage is closed. A 15th-century clunch reredos with thirteen niches, elaborate arches, vaulted canopies, and crocketed pinnacles is situated at the east end of the chancel. A mutilated figure, possibly of a Virgin and Child originally from the choir screen, is reset above the north door, and carved brackets associated with the screen are also reset in the north wall of the chancel.