Parish Church Of St Augustine Of Canterbury

Parish Church of St Augustine of Canterbury

This parish church dates from the 13th century and later. The walls are predominantly flint rubble, partly plastered, with limestone and clunch dressings. The stair turret is built of red brick in English bond, the south porch is timber framed and plastered, and the chancel is of dressed flint and red brick. The roofs are laid with handmade red clay tiles.

The nave is of early 13th-century date. The west tower dates from around 1400, with a southeast stair turret of brick added in the early 16th century. The south porch is 16th century or earlier. The chancel, north vestry, and north organ chamber are 19th-century additions of 1857.

The north wall of the nave is plastered externally and contains two windows. The eastern window is of 18th-century date, rectangular in form with a single light, inserted into a 15th-century aperture from which the mullion and tracery have been removed. It retains its original moulded label and hollow-moulded segmental-pointed rear-arch. The western window is a 13th-century lancet that was widened in the 18th century and has an external wooden lintel. Both windows contain 18th-century glass and leading—the former rectangular, the latter of diamond panes. Between these windows is the north doorway, dating to the early 14th century, now blocked. It has jambs and a two-centred head of two wave-moulded orders.

The south wall is of exposed rubble with three windows. The easternmost is of around 1500, comprising two plain lights under a four-centred head with moulded label and hollow-moulded segmental-pointed rear-arch. The second is a 13th-century lancet with chamfered and rebated jambs and head, externally repaired. The westernmost is of late 15th-century date, with two plain ogee lights under a square head with moulded label and hollow-moulded segmental rear-arch. Between the two western windows is the south doorway, dating from around 1400, with jambs and a two-centred head of two moulded orders and a moulded label. The door itself is original, assembled with fox-wedged pegs that fix V-edged boards to square ledges with chamfered arises. It has strap hinges with incomplete foliate ends of 13th-century date and a large stock-lock.

The roof of the nave comprises four bays and is plastered to the soffit, with exposed principal rafters, arch-braces, wall-pieces, and wall-plates, all moulded and dating from the 15th century.

The west tower rises in three stages with moulded plinth and strings and a crenellated parapet. The southeast corner has a half-octagonal stair-turret of brick added in the early 16th century, which extends above the tower and has a restored parapet supported on trefoiled machicolations. The tower-arch of around 1400 is two-centred and of two-chamfered orders. The responds each have a semi-octagonal attached shaft with moulded capital and base. The west window is of around 1400, comprising two cinquefoiled lights with a quatrefoil in a two-centred head, now decayed. In the south wall is a doorway to the stair-turret with chamfered two-centred head and jambs. The door is original, with hollow-moulded edge-members and fillets. In the west wall of the second stage is a window of one cinquefoiled light and a niche above it with cinquefoiled head, now defaced. Each wall of the bell-chamber contains a 20th-century restoration window.

The south porch is timber framed, much altered, and plastered externally, dating from the 16th century or earlier. It retains mortices for missing diamond mullions on each side and one cranked tiebeam.

The font has a plain octagonal bowl of oolite of 15th-century date with a restored stem. Three bells survive: the first and second are by Thomas de Lenne, dating from around 1333. The first is inscribed "Alicia, Ave Maria Gra. Plena Dns. Tecum" and the second "Thomas, Ihc, Nazaren Rex Judeorum". The third bell is by Henry Jordan, of late 15th-century date, and is inscribed "Sit Nomen Domini Benedictum". The bell-frame may be original.

The interior contains a brass of around 1440 depicting a man in plate armour with besagues and a woman in a high-waisted gown with horned head-dress, with indents for an inscription plate and four shields. On the north wall is a monument to Luce (Cotton), wife of John Tallakarne, dated 1610, which is a painted tablet flanked by terminal figures with gadrooned cornice and three shields of arms with strapwork. On the north wall of the nave is a wooden panel inscribed "This hath bin the churching the mearring stool and so it shall be still 1620", reportedly removed from a seat. At the west end are two late 15th-century pews and a front with attached shafts and some 17th-century panelling.