Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin

Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin

This is a parish church of presumed 13th-century origins with substantial later medieval work. The church has a chancel and outer aisle walls of the early 14th century, with a south porch, arcade, chancel arch, tower and south chapel added in the 15th century. The building underwent extensive restoration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The walls are constructed of flint rubble with dressings of limestone and clunch, and include some brick patching to the tower. The roofs are lead-covered and steeply pitched, particularly over the chancel.

The chancel dates to the early 14th century and is relatively complete, with four windows to the north, an extensively restored west window, a double piscina, and a moulded string course at cill level. The roof is of seven cants and contemporary with the 14th century, while the exterior carries a contemporary gable parapet with decorative kneelers.

The south wall has an inserted arcade of the late 15th or early 16th century providing access to the south chapel, which contains three contemporary large windows. The nave arcade dates to the mid-15th century and incorporates some reused 13th-century material. It is similar to the south chancel arcade, featuring moulded two-centred arches with four attached shafts with moulded bases and capitals. The roof consists of two separate phases and designs, both with king posts and studs of probable 18th-century date.

The 15th-century clerestory windows feature two cinquefoiled ogee lights. The south aisle retains the early 14th-century south door with moulded two-centre arch and an attached shaft to each jamb with moulded capital, base and label. The south aisle windows are 14th century but much restored, with a roof of 15th-century form. A gallery extends into one bay, open to the upper south porch chamber, and is supported on a 15th-century moulded portal frame.

The north aisle contains four windows: three of the 14th century (much restored), one of the 15th century, and a west window that is part 14th and part 15th century.

The south porch is of the 15th century and features an upper chamber with piscina and corner stair turret. The walls have a moulded plinth with crocketed corner pinnacles. The flanks contain windows of two cinquefoiled lights.

The west tower is of three stages with square, splayed angled buttresses carried up on embattled turrets, and an embattled parapet. The 15th-century tower arch is moulded and two-centred, with a contemporary chamfered moulded tower chamber floor featuring carved boss intersections. The west doorway has moulded jambs and a square head with traceried spandrels, each containing a plain shield and a band of ornamented squares above. The west window has three cinquefoiled lights with tracery. The north, south and west walls of the second stage contain windows of two trefoiled lights. The bell chamber has windows in each wall of three cinquefoiled ogee lights with tracery in a square head.

The vestry is of the 19th century.

The interior contains an octagonal font in the south aisle with panelled sides. The door to the porch chamber is 15th century, and a probable 16th-century door occupies the 14th-century south door opening. Several windows contain fragments of 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th-century glass.

Monuments include one to Sir John Saynnerton Dyer (1701) and one to Sir William Beaumont (1718) by C. Horsnale in the chancel; and monuments to John Lord Henniker (1803), Dame Anne Henniker (1702) and Elizabeth Smith (1652) in the north aisle. A group of 17th, 18th and early 19th-century headstones stands to the immediate south and southwest of the south porch.

The church is graded for its architectural, historic, topographical and townscape value.