Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church. The present building is an 1878 rebuilding of a 14th-century church, with a porch added in 1906 and a tower completed in 1911, all designed by G.E. Pritchett. The church is constructed of flint rubble, largely knapped, with stone dressings and leaded roofs with tiles on the south porch. The plan consists of a four-bay nave with aisles and a three-bay chancel. The northeast contains a vestry and organ bay, which replaced a medieval chantry chapel. A west tower and south porch complete the composition. The style throughout is Gothic Revival.

The chancel to the east displays an elaborate five-light window with tracery and pointed arch head, and a plinth with string course at sill level. Two-stage angle buttresses support the walls, which have moulded coping to the gable parapet, a trefoil in the gable, and a ridge cross. The south wall has three restored 14th-century windows, all with two cusped lights and quatrefoil traceried pointed arched heads; the leftmost is taller and has a transom near the base. An intermediate buttress with steps leads to a door with double ovolo moulded pointed arched surround. Stone and knapped flint chequerwork marks the parapet, which has moulded coping. The north wall has a single restored 14th-century two-light window with a quatrefoil head. A stack with offsets and crenellated capping rises above the two-bay lean-to vestry and organ bay, which has ogee-headed one and two-light windows and a door with depressed arched head.

The nave and north aisle each have four windows with two lights, cusped ogee heads, and varying foiled tracery patterns. Buttresses flank each bay on the aisle, with a diagonal buttress to the west. Stone-coped parapets crown the east and west ends of the aisle and the east end of the nave, which features a trefoil and ridge cross. A three-light window adorns the aisle's west end. The south aisle matches the north but has diagonal buttresses and three-light windows at both ends.

The south porch, positioned west of centre, has an inner pointed arch and a large outer opening with heavy moulding, shafted jambs, angle buttresses pinnacled to the south, and kneelers to the coped gable parapet with ridge cross. Two-light windows appear in the returns.

The four-stage west tower has an entrance to the west with a heavily moulded pointed arch. A string course at sill level steps down over the door, where a two-light window with foiled head appears. The third stage contains small lights on three sides and a clock to the east. Three-stage angle buttresses rise from the base. The belfry has paired two-light louvred openings with foiled pointed heads and mask-stopped hood moulds. A cornice runs beneath the embattled parapet, which combines flint and stone chequerwork. The roof is pyramidal with a weathervane finial. A semi-octagonal stair turret to the south has a chamfered pointed arch to its door and small lights; buttresses to the north and south mark where the tower meets the nave.

Interior

The chancel arch is a double-chamfered pointed arch with semi-octagonal responds, caps, and piers; carved stops mark the hood mould. The tower arch is also double-chamfered with short semi-octagonal responds and unfinished caps.

The four-bay nave arcades follow the 14th-century model, with four half columns and slender colonnettes in angles, moulded caps and bases, double-chamfered pointed arches, and hood moulds with carved stops. Short shafts in the clerestory rise from re-used 15th-century timber corbels carved as full-figure angels. The 19th-century roof features cusped bracing and incorporates re-used 15th-century timber bosses, which also appear in the aisle roofs. The chancel roof is more steeply pitched and braced.

The chancel's south wall contains an early 14th-century reset double piscina with moulded arches and shafted jambs with moulded caps and bases, and triple sedilia with cusped heads, restored in the 15th century. The north wall has a recess for an early tomb with a moulded four-centred arched head and a cusped recess.

Fragments from the medieval church are displayed in the vestry: a small recumbent figure bearing the City of London crest on a stone, and a coffin slab with low-relief cross, scroll brackets, pediments, and angel corbels. A late 14th or 15th-century octagonal font in the nave has a broad base, plain shaft, and broader octagonal bowl. The church contains 17th-century barley sugar communion rails with moulded hand rail, an octagonal pulpit with raised fielded panels and dentilled cornice, and 19th-century pews removed from the Church of St Mary, Stoke Newington. The Royal Arms of Charles II are displayed over the south entrance.

Monuments include a monument in the north aisle wall to Ann Horton, wife of F. Turner, died 1677, restored in 1966, featuring a cedar plaque with central epitaph, flanking figures of Time and Death in enriched niches, raised panels, swags below, and a cornice with central open pediment holding a blank cartouche and supporting reclining female figures with flanking urns. The south aisle wall carries a marble epitaph to S. Turner and his wife, died 1774, with an open pediment and urn and arms at base, and a slab with pediment to E. Turner, died 1756. The chancel's south wall has an epitaph with pediment to H. Etough, died 1757. Initialed stones from the 17th and 18th centuries remain in the chancel walls. Reset 18th-century floor slabs are visible in the tower walls. The chancel's southwest window contains fragments of 14th and 15th-century glass featuring pinnacled canopies and shields.