Parish Church Of Great St Mary'S

Parish Church of Great St Mary's

This is a medieval parish church built over the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, now part of the Church of England. The fabric was substantially restored in the 19th century, notably by G E Pritchett between 1856 and 1859.

The church is constructed of flint rubble with flint facing, stone quoins and dressings. The chancel has smooth render, and a 16th-century red brick stair turret rises on the south side of the tower. The roof covering is lead throughout, except for the north aisle which was re-covered in copper in 1951.

The plan consists of a chancel, nave and lower part of the western tower, all dating to the 13th century. The north and south aisles and south-east chapel were added in the early 14th century. The clerestory, raised nave roof, south porch and upper part of the tower date to the 15th century.

The tower is a large square structure of three stages topped with a crenellated moulded parapet and an octagonal Hertfordshire Spike. The spike has raised lead ribs forming a lozenge diaper pattern below a ball and slender wind vane. String courses mark each stage. A 16th-century polygonal brick staircase on the south side rises only to the second stage and is crenellated at its top. The west doorway is 13th-century; above it is a 15th-century Perpendicular three-light window. The second stage has 13th-century lancets in the north and south walls. The third stage has 15th-century two-light windows with Y-tracery, belfry louvres and a clock dial on the west face below the cill. The remainder of the church has plain parapets and buttresses.

The north wall of the chancel contains a blocked 15th-century door. According to the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (1911), the south wall has a two-centred arch dating around 1300. The chancel arch is 13th-century. The chancel windows comprise one five-light east window, one window in the north wall and two in the south wall. The south-east chapel has an east window, a blocked 14th-century window on the south, and a rood stair in the north-west corner.

The nave has three-bay 14th-century arcades with two-centred arches on quatrefoil pillars with moulded caps and bases. An upper door to the rood loft is positioned to the south of the chancel arch. The narrower north aisle dates to the 14th century but is probably some twenty years earlier than the south aisle. It has three-light windows at its east and west ends and two two-light windows on the north wall, all with rear arches and moulded jambs, plus a 14th-century north doorway. The wider south aisle has two south windows and a 14th-century doorway with a traceried medieval south door featuring decorative ironwork. A piscina stands beside the altar.

The chancel has an oak ceiling installed in 1872 with beams inscribed "1662. Thomas Russel repaired this chancel" and "W Sharpe 1884". The nave roof is 15th-century with moulded members, traceried spandrels and stone corbels. Both 15th-century aisle roofs have mouldings and carved bosses; the easternmost stone corbels in the south aisle bear symbols of the Evangelists. Plaster was removed from between the ribs of the aisle roofs in 1951. The south porch has a 15th-century timber roof.

The furnishings include an octagonal font of around 1400 with a panelled stem and quatrefoil panels around the bowl. A 15th-century oak chancel screen with three bays has traceried work above and panelling below. The oak pulpit is in Jacobean style inscribed "Christe is all in all. 1652". An oak poor box dating to around 1600 has three locks, and a 17th-century oak parish chest has five locks. Several bench ends survive from the early 16th century.

The church is of particular importance for containing a very large collection of funeral brasses and sculptured monuments of exceptional artistic quality, representing work by major English sculptors. The churchyard also contains noteworthy 18th-century gravestones. The church stands as a substantially unaltered large medieval parish church typical of Hertfordshire examples and represents one of the finest collections of memorials of the highest artistic quality.