Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Runwell

An Anglican church of 13th-century origins standing in an uncleared churchyard. The building comprises a nave and chancel, a western tower, a south aisle beneath a gabled roof, north and south porches, and a southeast vestry under a catslide roof. The chancel was lengthened by two bays in 1907. Construction is of stone rubble and flint with red tiled roofs; the porches are timber-framed, and the 1907 chancel extension features snecked masonry below window sills with a stone band at sill level.

The church is approached from the north side to the road. The chancel has angle buttresses and a three-light east window with trefoil-headed lights. The south side of the nave and chancel is buttressed with set-offs. Windows on the south side of the chancel and north and south sides of the nave are square-headed; some of the nave windows are medieval.

The outstanding feature of the exterior is a good Perpendicular four-stage western tower with diagonal buttresses containing many set-offs, an embattled parapet, and a projecting southeast stair turret. The turret is rectangular on plan at the base but has splayed corners for the upper two stages, rising above the tower parapet with its own embattled parapet. The tower displays a moulded west doorway and a three-light west window with intersecting cusped tracery. The next stage has single trefoil-headed windows, and the belfry stage has two-light windows with cinquefoil-headed lights. A low-set arch appears in the wall west of the north porch. The tower features modest polychromatic detail with a knapped flint band above the plinth and knapped flint detail to the buttresses. A shingled recessed spire with a lead finial and weathervane crowns the tower.

Two timber-framed Perpendicular porches of good quality survive. The north porch stands on a low plinth and has an arch-braced crown post roof with a carved boss and sprocketted eaves. The dado section has been renewed, but the posts and sole plate are medieval. Above the dado are moulded mullions with original tracery infill including quatrefoils. The square-headed outer doorway has carved spandrels. The south porch is similar but less decorated, with a crown post roof with cranked ties and wall plates that narrow towards the south to support the verges. The plank and muntin dado is largely intact, though the mullions and some tracery (including trefoils) have been replaced. The inner doorway is chamfered and contains a probably late medieval door of overlapping vertical planks with strap hinges.

Internally, the chancel roof, dating to circa 1907, is canted and boarded, divided into panels by moulded ribs. A late Gothic-style chancel screen of 1909 by W F Unsworth features a wide central ogee arch, a coved cornice and cresting, and rood figures. The nave roof appears largely medieval with some replacement rafters; it too is canted with a corbelled wallplate and three chamfered timber ties. A late medieval ceiling covers the lower stage of the tower. The triple hollow-chamfered tower arch rests on demi-shafts with moulded capitals.

The south arcade is a notable feature, comprising four bays of circa 1200 with circular piers and double-chamfered arches. The south aisle has an open wagon roof. The chancel features red and white marble paving, a piscina, and four-bay sedilia with polished marble shafts with foliage capitals. Early 20th-century choir stalls with shaped ends are present, as is a double hagioscope and an early 20th-century two-sided timber pulpit. The font has an octagonal stone bowl on an octagonal stem. Nave benches have square-headed ends and recessed panels.

Monuments include a wall brass to Edward Sulyard, died 1547, and his wife, framed by pilasters and beneath a pediment. A tablet to Edward Sulyard, died 1692, is signed by Thomas Cartwright Junior. Medieval stained glass fragments survive in one window, and other stained glass includes a 1929 window signed Heaton, Butler and Bayne. Some stone and timber elements in the church were painted with bright colours in the 1940s.

The church is notable as a 13th-century building with extensive medieval fabric, including the rare survival of two timber-framed 15th-century porches in a relatively good state of preservation.