Church Of St Martin

The Church of St. Martin is a parish church built in 1841 by S. Staples for Rev. T. Newcome, the Rector of Shenley. It is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and has slate roofs, showcasing a Gothic chapel style. The church features a four-bay unaisled nave, a short low chancel, a west porch, a southwest bell turret, and a northeast vestry.

The tall nave windows consist of two pointed lights, each with hollow chamfered mullions set in a square head, surrounded by chamfered surrounds and stone hood moulds with carved stops. There are two-stage buttresses with stone offsets, positioned diagonally at the eastern angles. An upper door leads to a gallery on the northwest side. The building has a plinth and boxed eaves, with small lights in the gable ends of the nave. Dentilled brick courses are found below the gable parapets, which are topped with cross finials. The eastern window has four lights with a four-centred arched head.

The vestry features pointed heads on the doors to the west and north, a slit window, and a casement. The gabled west porch has pointed arched entrances with stone hood moulds that include carved stops, and chamfered slit openings on the sides. The stone-coped parapet above the porch has a square west window that is now blocked, accompanied by an octagonal three-stage turret with stone courses between the stages and pointed openings on each side in the belfry stage.

Inside, there is a pointed chancel arch that is chamfered, with capitals and bases on the responds, and a stopped hood mould leading to the nave. The west gallery, now an organ loft, has a panelled front supported by four cast iron colonnettes. The nave roof features a decorative queen post with open panels in the spandrels, while the chancel roof has a decorative arched braced collar beam.

The stained glass includes pieces from the Church of St. Botolph, with the eastern window, two central windows in the south wall of the nave, and the eastern window in the north wall of the nave dating from around 1850-1860. The eastern window in the south wall of the nave is by Morris and Co. from 1907. Additionally, there are items from St. Botolph's, including the Royal Arms of George III painted on canvas and brasses commemorating R. Allway and Family, who died in 1621.