Church Of St Katherine

Church of St Katherine, Sacombe

Parish church dating from the 14th century. The building was substantially restored between May 1855 and February 1856 by Abel Smith of Woodhall Park, as recorded on a plaque in the chancel. The works included rebuilding the roof, tower, vestry and west wall, forming an organ loft, making new oak seats, and entirely refacing the outside with knapped flint.

The church is constructed of knapped flint facing with some flint rubble in the plinth, with stone dressings reused from a demolished church at Thundridge. The roofs are tiled. The building consists of a nave with a narrower, shorter chancel, a tall south tower over the entrance, and a vestry to the north of the chancel.

The chancel has a three-light east window with a two-centred arched head and restored curvilinear tracery, with a mask-stopped hood mould. The gable parapet is stone-coped with a trefoil opening and masks on the kneelers, and has a ridge cross. Two-stage buttresses flank the returns. The south side of the chancel has two restored two-light windows with two-centred heads and curvilinear tracery, linked by hood moulds, set above a continuous plinth with sprocket eaves.

The vestry has a separate roof and is lit by three lancets in a square surround to the north with small buttresses. Quatrefoils appear in the gables, with a three-light pointed-arched window with intersecting tracery to the east and a two-centred arched doorway to the west, accessed by steps. The gable parapets are coped with kneelers.

Towards the east end of the nave, on the north and south sides, are two-light windows matching those in the chancel. The nave's west end has a tall three-light window with buttresses at the ends and a parapet matching the east end.

The tall square four-stage south tower is unbuttressed and has small stone quoins. To the south is a pointed-arched opening with triple chamfer and hood mould, with squared flint voussoirs. Above this is a three-light window formerly serving the organ loft and a clock imposed on a slit opening. A string course at the belfry level features tall louvred lancets with trefoiled heads on all sides. The parapet is embattled. To the east, the tower has two lights in a square surround on the lower stage and a trefoiled slit on the third stage. To the west is a semi-octagonal stair turret on three stages with an entrance, slit openings, and stone quoining. The inner entrance to the south is a double-chamfered two-centred arch.

Interior

The chancel arch is 14th century, two-centred and double-chamfered, with the outer order dying into wave-moulded responds with 19th-century foliate stops. The roofs are 19th-century work: the nave has scissor bracing while the chancel has braced collar beams. Over the south entrance is a former organ loft with a four-centred moulded arch and a corbelled balcony with a Gothic panelled front.

The chancel's south wall preserves a restored 14th-century piscina and double sedilia with cusped ogee arches and crocketed finials; the piscina has a hexafoil bowl. The 19th-century fittings are in the Gothic style. A 17th-century iron hour glass holder is fixed to the pulpit.

The chancel's north wall carries several important monuments. A large marble epitaph to T. Rolt (died 1758) by M. Rysbrack features a cornice ramped up to centre over a cherub, flags, trophies and arms, with scrolled jambs and festoons and two cherubs flanking a cartouche with arms at the base. A marble epitaph to Elizabeth Caswall (died 1815) by Flaxman has an inscription with consoles at the base of a tapering black marble slab decorated with low-relief allegorical female figures—one standing with raised arm, the other kneeling and weeping—topped with a pedimental head with ante fixae and acroterion. A stone epitaph to J. Meriton (died 1669) has a richly carved surround with scrolled jambs and festoons, a cherub at the base, and a scrolled head with skull. One sedile contains reset brass inscriptions to J. and E. Dodyngton (died 1537 and 1544).

The vestry's west wall holds a reset marble epitaph to Sir T. Rolt (died 1710), noted as 'Agent of Persia and President of India'. The north wall displays an 18th-century cherub from the base of another monument.

The east window contains a late 19th-century Resurrection scene.