Parish Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin

This is a parish church with 11th-century origins, substantially developed and modified over subsequent centuries. The building comprises an 11th-century nave and tower base, an early 13th-century chancel, a late thirteenth-century north chapel, and a tower rebuilt in the early fourteenth century. A south porch was added around 1500. The church underwent significant restoration in 1885 at the expense of the vicar A.H.D. Hutton, with architect J.P. St Aubyn overseeing the work and employing Mr Rickett as stone mason.

The walls are constructed of flint rubble with clunch and limestone dressings. The nineteenth-century roof is red plain tile with patterned ridge tiles.

The south elevation features a two-stage tower with west angle buttresses rising in three stages to belfry height and crowned with an embattled parapet. The tower contains a restored two-light belfry window and a single lancet light below. The nave displays a plain gable parapet with limestone quoins set on a shallow stepped plinth. The south doorway dates from the eleventh century, with a plain circular head, square jambs, and chamfered imposts. A blocked north door retains similar features and carries carved ornament cut back to the outer wall surface. The south porch, rebuilt in the nineteenth century, retains its original roof with carved braces and an embattled and moulded cornice. To the left is an early fourteenth-century window of two trefoiled ogee lights with a quatrefoil in a two-centred arch. To the right is a window of three cinquefoil lights with cusped spandrels, square head, and label. The chancel has a parapet gable with a cross finial and no buttresses. The thirteenth-century priest's doorway features stop-chamfered jambs, a two-centred head with label, and has been restored. The left window of the chancel is late fourteenth-century with two ogee-cinquefoil lights and a transom that was originally fitted with shutters. The right window is also late fourteenth-century, containing two wide cinquefoil lights in a square head.

The interior is rich in medieval detail. The chancel arch is two-centred with responds and moulded capitals and bases that stand on the original eleventh-century nave wall. A squint occupies the north corner with a wrought semi-circular head. The piscina is particularly fine, comprising two two-centred arches enriched with dogtooth ornament and a central octagonal shaft with moulded cap and base. An early sixteenth-century screen spans the opening with a four-centred head, flanked by four narrow bays on either side featuring panels with ogee-cinquefoiled heads and cusped spandrels. The nave contains a thirteenth-century two-centred arch of two chamfered orders that leads to the north chapel, now used as an organ chamber and vestry. The west wall of the nave features a two-bay wall arcade with two-centred arches and mask stops. The tower arch is two-centred with three continuous chamfered orders. The roofs have been partly restored; the chancel roof comprises three bays while the nave roof contains four bays, one of which is of collar rafter type with side purlins and braced principal rafters with moulded original principal timbers.

The church contains a thirteenth-century font with a square bowl, stop-chamfered central pier, and small octagonal shafts with moulded caps and bases. A south door of the nave, dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, is constructed of feathered boards with a round head and planted moulding. Fifteenth-century pews have been restored. A seventeenth-century communion table is present. In the south wall of the tower is a coffin recess; two pieces of a thirteenth-century coffin lid are preserved in the south porch.

The church contains numerous monuments. In the chancel are a white marble tablet to Rev Andrew Penn and others dated 1800; a tablet with gadrooned cornice supporting obelisks and a central shield in strapwork with caryatids and verse to Oliver Dalton, 1618; a white marble tablet to John Chester Penn dated 1823 and others; a white marble tablet to Thomas Fassett dated 1820; and a floor slab in white stone to Sarah Bridge Barlow and her husband dated 1815 and 1828. The north chapel contains a vault beneath the remains of Dorothy, wife of Thomas Fassett, dated 1797.

The chancel contains stained glass depicting the Adoration of the Magi, dated 1901 and made by Kempe.