Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, located on Layers Marney Wick Road, is a Grade I listed building largely rebuilt in the early 16th century using red brick. The west tower features decorative diapering in flared headers, diagonal stone-dressed buttresses, embattled parapets, and a polygonal staircase tower. The west window has a four-centred head and intersecting tracery. The church includes an embattled south aisle, a south porch, and a south chancel porch, with all windows having four-centred heads in brick. The east window is made of stone and consists of five trefoiled ogee and transomed lights with vertical tracery, set within a four-centred head. The east gable is topped with a crow-stepped parapet.

Inside, the nave has a north arcade with two bays featuring four-centred arches of three moulded orders, labels, and shield stops. An upper door leading to the rood loft remains, also with a four-centred head. At the west end of the north aisle, there is a priest's chamber that contains remnants of a fireplace and an octagonal chimney stack. The south porch of the nave has a moulded and four-centred outer arch made of brick, with double chamfered responds that have moulded capitals and bases. Above the porch is a niche with a coved soffit, and the side walls have windows with three transomed and four-centred lights, featuring moulded jowls and labels. The porch roof is constructed in five cants.

The original south door is made of nailed cross boards. The nave roof consists of seven cants with four commons per bay, and the principal frames are heavily moulded with heavy tie beams. The chancel roof also has seven cants, with inclined ashlars, side purlins above the common collars, and compassed wind braces that rise to the apexes of the principal rafters. The church contains many notable internal features, including a 15th-century rood screen with ogee arches and a 14th-century alabaster tomb with an effigy in armor, featuring a bascinet. There is also a tomb dedicated to Henry Lord Marney, dated 1523, which has a recumbent effigy. On the north wall of the nave, there is a large painted figure of St Christopher bearing Christ and holding a ragged staff, set against a landscape background that is presumed to date from the early 16th century.