Church Of St Mary

TG 01 NE ELSING CHURCH ROAD (south side)

4/18 Church of St.Mary 30.5.60. - I

Parish church. Built by Sir Hugh Hastings between 1330 and 1347 replacing an earlier church of which a small fragment of wailing survives in west wall of nave. Flint with ashlar and some brick dressings. Pantile roofs. West tower, exceptionally wide aisleless nave with north and south porches, chancel with contemporary vestry to north. West tower with angle buttresses Incorporating a stair turret to north west. blest doorway with dying mould- ings. 2-light traceried window above with mouchettes and daggers. 2-light bell-openings with similar tracery. Crenellated parapet with flushwork and crocketted corner pinnacles. Crenellated parapets also to nave and chancel. Nave porches with ogee headed and trilobe cusped entrances. Ogee headed north door with double cusping and a hood mould with fleuron. 6 3-light nave windows with fine Decorated tracery consisting in each case of a pair of diagonal petals with a shorter vertical petal or dagger above. The cusping is wide except in the two easternmost windows on the north side where it is doubled. Chancel with 2 2-light windows to south and one to north with paired mouchettes and dagger tracery. 5-light east window with 9 flamboyant mouchettes. Blocked entrance to vault beneath east window. Contemporary vestry with a 2-light Y-traceried east window. Interior. Tall tower arch of 2 plain-chamfered orders on polygonal responds. Triple sedilia cum piscina with cusped ogee heads. Mutilated life-size brass in chancel to Sir Hugh Hastings (died 1347) with effigy surrounded by figures in architectural canopies. C14 octagonal font with bell-shaped bowl and blind tracery. Contemporary restored font cover with tracery, flying buttresses and crocketted spire. Surviving chancel screen dado with mutilated paintings. Fragments of C14 glass in chancel.

Listing NGR: TG0517016539