Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Parish church at Little Wymondley, isolated from the village. The church has an early 12th-century origin, built for the Argentein family and given to Wymondley Priory around 1218. The building was substantially renovated around 1400, when the chancel apse was changed to a square end and a west tower was added. Major restoration work took place in 1874-76, which included rebuilding the south porch, extending the north vestry and the east end of the chancel, and adding a north aisle. This restoration involved replacing the chancel arch, fittings, and font; raising the nave floor level; and forming the north arcade of the nave. Further restoration in 1948 revealed the rood stair and openings in the south wall of the nave, along with the ancient roof structure. The tower was restored in 1966.

The church is built of flint rubble, with the west end of the nave and the tower faced in coursed flint pebbles with stone dressings. The tower parapet is of flint and red brick. Walls elsewhere are roughcast with a deep plaster cove to the eaves on the south side of the nave. The roofs are steeply pitched red tile, with the nave roof taller than the chancel and extending down as a catslide over the added north aisle. The tower has a pyramidal low tile roof with vane and weathercock.

The plan consists of a square-ended chancel, nave, north aisle, gabled northeast vestry, south porch, and embattled west tower, which rises only slightly higher than the nave roof. The chancel is one step up from the nave, with three steps to the altar. The floor is red and black chequered tile, with patterns and borders of coloured and encaustic tiles on the higher steps.

The chancel has a facetted boarded waggon roof with cornice and battens. Two original early 15th-century windows survive in the south wall. The eastern window has a single cinquefoil light with tracery in the head and a three-centred rear arch. The western window is a low-side window with cinquefoil head and pointed chamfered rear arch, with jambs rebated for shutters and pivots; it is now glazed with an engraved glass window by Francis Skeat dated 1974. A 15th-century piscina reset in the south wall has a cinquefoil head within a rectangular frame. The east window is 19th-century, comprising three lights in 15th-century style with stained glass. Single-light north windows are of similar date.

A stone corbel head, finely carved in the 14th century and depicting a female figure, is reset in the north wall; it may formerly have supported the rood beam. A brass on the north wall records the erection of a monument in 1605 by George Nedham to his father John and grandfather James Nedham. James Nedham came into the county in 1536 when, as Surveyor of the King's Works, he was granted the lands and buildings of Wymondley Priory at the Dissolution and became patron of this church. The altar has riddel posts.

The nave has an exposed timber roof from which boarding was removed in 1948. It is single-framed with each couple having a collar with straight braces underneath, and ashlar pieces at the foot. The two rough tie-beams may have been added to hold in the wallstops. The roof structure is similar to that surviving at Wymondley Priory and possibly dates from the 13th century. There is considerable external projection of the south eaves, covered by a plastered cove.

The south wall is thickened where it contains the winding rood stair, which has a pointed rebated lower doorway and an upper door facing west with a round-cornered square head and slot for the rood-beam at the threshold. Two 15th-century windows are set in the south wall. The eastern one has two cinquefoil lights with a traceried pointed head, and an encircled consecration-cross is cut in the east reveal. The western window is a high single-light window with cinquefoil head and hollow moulded three-centred rear arch. The 15th-century south doorway is continuously wave-moulded externally in two orders, with a pointed wave-moulded rear arch. The door inside is flush beaded.

The north arcade of the nave, dating from the 19th-century restoration, comprises two bays in 14th-century style with wide arches of two chamfered orders, octagonal piers and imposts with moulded caps and bases. An image niche in the northeast corner, reset from the 15th century, has a cinquefoil opening with square head and semi-octagonal front bracket shelf.

The interior fittings include a 19th-century octagonal oak pulpit and lectern. The pews are swept-back mission-style with openwork scissor-shaped ends. Black stone armorial grave slabs in the floor next to the chancel step are to George Nedham (1669), George Nedham (1726), and Rev Stephen Woodifield (1757, under the pulpit). The font is Caen stone, octagonal, dated 1875, with a 17th-century moulded oak cover topped by a symmetrical arrangement of oak flying buttresses of serpentine shape supporting a centre with pendant and pierced obelisk finial. Brass plates at the rear of the nave record the erection of a clock in 1903 for the Coronation of Edward VII, restoration of belfry windows and masonry of the tower in 1966, and restoration of the west window in 1974.

The chancel arch is two-centred and 15th-century, comprising two chamfered orders with jamb shafts and caps. An oak screen with embattled headbeam crosses the tower arch.

The west tower consists of two receding stages with a tiled offset below the crenelated parapet and a chamfered string course at sill level. The belfry openings on the north and west have two lights with trefoil heads in rectangular openings. The tower has a chamfered stone base and a two-light west window with four-centred head. A hatchment-shaped clock-face features a raised circular metal fret. The tower arch is two-centred, of two chamfered orders with jamb shafts and caps.

The north aisle is a wide lean-to structure with an open timber roof on a central arched braced principal with collar and brace to the purlin. It has a buttress between its two north windows. The two north windows are two-lights with cinquefoil heads and square heads with three-centred rear arches. A single-light pointed window faces west. The aisle is open to the vestry on the east.

The northeast vestry is gabled with prominent bargeboard and contains a pointed two-light window with Y-tracery and cinquefoil lights. It has a red brick chimney and a chamfered stone east doorway with boarded door.

The south porch is stuccoed with lines of ashlar stucco label mouldings, battened doors, and a cross on the gable parapet.

The church is said formerly to have been dedicated to St. Peter.