Church Of St George

A parish church of medieval and later date, constructed in flint with ashlar and some brick dressings, and covered with pantile roofs. The building comprises a 15th-century west tower, a nave with north aisle and north porch, and a chancel whose north aisle continuation forms a funerary chapel.

The 15th-century west tower features diagonal buttresses and is topped with a crenellated parapet. Its west face is dominated by a large three-light window with panel tracery, beneath which sits a four-centred doorway. The spandrels either side display blind tracery beneath a cusped hood mould, and above the doorway are heraldic shields of the Harskye family. The bell openings are two-light with cusped Y-tracery and four-centred heads.

The nave's south elevation displays a wave-moulded doorway with a two-light Decorated window above it featuring a soufflet beneath a four-centred arch. Below this are two three-light windows with panel tracery under four-centred arches, and two further windows—two-light and three-light respectively—beneath flat heads with rectangular hood moulds. The north aisle similarly has two-light and three-light windows with flat heads and rectangular hood moulds. A 14th-century doorway here shows two wave-moulded orders beneath a hood mould with carved head label stops. The porch entrance arch is double-ogee moulded with a niche to its side and an ogee-headed niche above, and single-light cusped side windows flank the entrance. A priest's doorway features hollow-chamfered moulding with a hood mould. The aisle windows to east and west are each of three cusped lights beneath segmental arches, and three clerestorey windows of three lights without cusping run along the upper nave wall. The chancel's east window is a particularly fine late-medieval composition of four Y-traceried lights under a very shallow four-centred arch. Its south elevation shows two two-light windows, the western flat-headed and the eastern with a soufflet beneath a four-centred arch.

Internally, the main arcade comprises three bays. Two of these rest on octagonal piers with polygonal responds and support arches of two chamfered orders, dating to the 14th or 15th century. The westernmost bay is of 14th-century date, featuring two wave-moulded orders on filleted semicircular responds. An identical arch separates the chancel from the north aisle. The tall tower arch has four chamfered orders without responds, whilst the chancel arch displays two hollow-chamfered orders on polygonal responds.

The nave roof is a restored hammer-beam structure with moulded principals and purlins and carved bosses. The aisle roof is arch-braced, 15th-century in date, with an embattled wall plate, whilst the chancel roof, also arch-braced, has been heavily restored. A chancel piscina with credence shelf sits beneath a cusped arch.

A 12th-century font comprises three shafts around a circular central pier supporting cushion capitals, all rising from a square-section bowl. The very tall 15th-century font cover is largely a 20th-century replica. Five bays of a former chancel screen have been re-set beneath the tower arch; these display extremely elaborate flamboyant tracery with reticulated motifs, fleurons and ogee arches with varying leaf carvings to each bay and turned shafts.

Late-medieval benches with embattled backs, poppy head ends and eight damaged carved arm rests (representing lions) survive in the church. Three late-medieval brasses are present, notably one in the north chapel commemorating Sir John Harskye and his wife Katherine. An effigy of an unknown knight with crossed legs, his feet resting on a lion, lies in the north aisle. A 17th-century marble and alabaster monument to Sir Edward Barkham and his wife is of exceptional quality, featuring two full-size effigies on a sarcophagus with Tuscan columns and weepers. An overmantel above displays a heraldic aedicule flanked by carved statues of Victory and Death, with winged hourglasses at the extremities.

Fragments of 13th and 14th-century glass remain in the north chapel, which is separated from the north aisle by fine 17th-century wrought iron railings.