Church Of St Mary The Virgin, St Thomas And All Saints

Church of St Mary the Virgin, St Thomas and All Saints

A parish church built circa 1853 in the Early English style, designed by William Hambley. It stands on the site of a chapel re-established by Lady Joan de Bohun in 1386 and a later timber-framed church. The building is constructed of Kentish ragstone with stone dressings.

The church comprises a chancel, nave with aisles, a south tower with porch, and a north vestry, all covered by three steeply pitched grey slate roofs with east and west gables. The south tower features an octagonal shingle spire with a finial, hipped at the base. The tower rises in three orders with angle buttresses to two stages and a corbel table to the belfry, which has angle pilasters and lancet sounding louvres to each face. The second stage displays quatrefoiled roundels to the east and west faces with a band below, while the south face carries a curved triangular recess with a circular window and band below. The tower doorway has a chamfered two-centred arch with a moulded label bearing king and queen stops, a vertically boarded door with ornate hinges, and an original iron lantern above.

Buttresses accent all angles and between windows throughout the building. The east face displays one-to-one-to-one windows with chamfered two-centred heads and labels bearing real and stylised heads. The chancel window contains three graduated lights, with a similar high window in the north aisle wall. A cross crowns the chancel apex. The south face carries one-to-three-to-two similar windows and labels, with the plinth continuing through. A north doorway features a two-centred head with chamfered work of two orders, a label with king and queen head stops, a vertically boarded door with two ornate strap hinges, and a pediment above. The west face shows one-to-one-to-one windows with labels; the nave window has two lights with a quatrefoil over, and a pointed elliptical window pierces the apex. Stone parapet verges carry the band and plinth through. The north face displays one-to-zero-to-four similar windows, with a north vestry doorway featuring a Caernarvon head and vertically boarded door.

The interior features stone flag floors throughout except for coloured tiles in the sanctuary. The aisles have side purlin ridge board roof construction with intermittent collars and ashlar posts. The nave and chancel roofs employ double side purlins, ridge boards, ashlar posts, intermittent collars, wall posts on corbels, stop-chamfered principals, and moulded wall plates.

The chancel contains 19th-century stained glass in the north and south windows, a wooden panelled reredos with wheat and vine motifs to the side panels and the four Evangelists rendered in poker work to the centre panels, moulded wooden altar rails, and a simple two-centred chancel arch. A north vestry doorway has a square head. The north and south arcades comprise five bays with moulded capitals and bases to alternating round and octagonal columns and responds. An octagonal panelled pulpit has a moulded cornice and soffit with braces to the soffit and chamfered balusters to the steps. The organ case is painted with trefoiled roundels; a plaque records that the organ won a gold medal in 1866 at an exhibition and was purchased from North Ockendon Church, Essex, on 10 March 1908. A wooden eagle lectern dates to 1930. The font is a simple round bowl with an octagonal soffit and stem, moulded base, and carved wooden lid. The church retains complete panelled box pews with gates.

A wall memorial commemorates the Rt. Hon. George Henry Finch, Earl of Winchelsea, MP for Rutland for 40 years, erected in May 1907. A bequest board records that Rev. Thomas Ellwood in 1815 bequeathed the interest of £100, to be distributed twice yearly to the poor. Trinity House donated money for the church's construction on condition that the steeple be built high enough to serve as a navigational landmark.