Church Of St Edmund

Church of St Edmund

This is a parish church with a 13th-century nave and chancel, a 14th-century north porch, and a 19th-century west tower with rebuilt east wall. A 19th-century south chapel and aisle were added, with restorations continuing into the 20th century. The walls are constructed in plastered stone and flint rubble, with stone and flint flushwork facing applied to the west tower, south chapel and aisle. The roofs are covered in red plain tiles.

The chancel's east wall features three graduated lancets with a continuous label moulding and head stops, a plinth, parapet verges, and angle buttresses. The north wall contains two 13th-century chamfered lancets, partly restored, with two buttresses. The south chapel and aisle have windows on their east and west walls, each containing two cinquefoiled ogees with labels and head stops, and angle buttresses. Along the south wall, the four western bays each have a window of two cinquefoiled ogees with segmental heads and labels. The two eastern windows contain two chamfered trefoiled lights with centred heads and labels, separated by buttresses.

The nave's north wall contains two windows: the eastern, dating to around 1300, has two trefoiled lights with a trefoil in a two-centred head, while the western window, largely restored, has three trefoiled lights with a trefoil over a two-centred head. Angle buttresses and three further buttresses support the wall.

The 14th-century gabled north porch is timber-framed with a two-centred arched doorway flanked by open lights featuring trefoiled ogee heads and tracery. The side walls each have six trefoiled ogee lights with cusped spandrels and restored mullions. The gables have foiled bargeboards, moulded wall plates, collars to each rafter pair, a cambered tie beam, and side seats. The north doorway has a 19th-century chamfered four-centred head with double vertically boarded doors and ornate hinges, whilst the rear splays date to the 14th century.

The west tower comprises three stages divided by stone bands, with angle buttresses supporting the walls. It features a panelled flint flushwork cornice, crenellations with pinnacles, and a five-stage crocketted spire with a weathervane. A stair turret rises from the north-west angle, with gargoyles projecting from the cornice. The bell chamber has windows of two trefoiled lights with quatrefoils and two-centred heads on the north, west and south faces. The second stage has single trefoiled lights on the north, south and west faces. The first-stage west window contains two trefoiled lights with roundels over a two-centred head. The upper stage of the stair turret features quatrefoils in flint flushwork panels, with a lower cross light and quatrefoil.

Interior

The chancel has a boarded barrel-vaulted roof. A restored 13th-century piscina with chamfered jambs and a two-centred head, but no drain, is set in the south wall. A monument to Edmund Saunder, dated 1615, occupies the south wall and comprises an alabaster figure of a kneeling man in civil dress set within a round-headed recess with flanking pilasters, cornice and shield, with brass inlaid beneath. The 19th-century additions include painted prayer and commandments in the reredos, a wooden altar rail, and stained glass windows of 19th and 20th-century date. A 19th-century archway to the south features two-centred arches of two chamfered orders with moulded capitals and bases to columns. The chancel arch, also 19th-century, is two-centred with moulded capitals and bases to shafts.

The nave has a 16th-century roof of six bays with moulded wall plates, arched braces supporting raised tie beams which carry queen posts and arched braces to collars, struts to the apex, and arched braces to side purlins. The 14th-century timber door surrounds on the north and south walls are moulded with tracery to the gables and feature moulded wall posts. Arched braces spring from these gables to support a heavy tie beam which appears to have had its centre removed to form hammerbeams. (This arrangement is illustrated in C.A. Hewitt's Church Carpentry, 1974.) The removal of the tie beam's centre provides a view from the chancel through to the 19th-century tower arch, which is now tied with a metal bar. This truss formerly supported a bell turret.

A south arcade of three bays features chamfered two-centred arches springing from octagonal columns with moulded capitals and bases. A 16th-century octagonal font has panelled sides decorated with shields, foliage and pomegranate motifs, a carved soffit, cinquefoiled panels to the stem, and a moulded base. The 19th-century tower arch is moulded and two-centred. The floors are laid in coloured tile and brick. The 19th-century south aisle has a lean-to roof with moulded principles, arched braces and trefoiled spandrels.