Church Of St Edmund

The Church of St Edmund is a parish church with origins in the 12th century, but primarily dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, and subject to restoration in 1872. It is constructed of flint with limestone dressings, featuring a brick gable to the porch and a thatched roof extending over the nave and chancel. The church comprises a west tower, a nave, a chancel, and a south porch.

The west tower is square, built in the 15th century with diagonal buttresses. The upper stage of the tower was reconstructed with crude three-light bell openings and a stepped parapet made of gault brick. A three-light Perpendicular window is located on the west face, with smaller cusped openings on the south and west. A polygonal stair turret is situated at the north-west corner. The south porch has a red brick gable, parapeted with tumbling, and a semi-circular headed opening. Norman doorways are found on both the north and south sides; the south doorway features one order of shafts with volutes and a chevron-moulded arch. A corbel-head sits above the arch, and the pointed inner arch boasts a continuous hollow chamfer. A bench on the east side of the porch is supported by reset carved stone corbels.

Windows on the south nave and chancel, dating from around 1300, are two-light with Y tracery. The east window is a four-light design with intersecting tracery. A smaller two-light Decorated window is found in the north chancel wall, partially blocked, while a three-light Perpendicular window is located in the north wall of the nave, alongside a smaller lancet now blocked. The north doorway is also blocked and built with brick, featuring one order of shafts with scallop-moulded capitals (the shafts are missing) supporting an arch that was likely intended for beak-head ornament, but left uncarved. The nave roof is single-framed with scissor bracing and ashlar pieces to the walls. A 15th-century nave roof exists with roll-moulded arch-braced principals and an embattled cornice. A square-headed screen has remains of painted panels at its base, and the upper section includes ogee arches with panel tracery above.

A fine 15th-century pulpit features eight panels of original colour, displaying the inscription “Inter natos mulierum non serrexit major Johanne Baptista” within finely traceried panels separated by tall buttresses, along with an Early 17th-century backboard and octagonal tester. A faint 14th-century painting of St Christopher is visible on the north nave wall. An octagonal 13th-century font is present, complete with an open trussed ogee cover. A good set of nave benches are in place, featuring poppyhead ends and carvings of animals and figures on the armrests, most with pierced or traceried backs. A 17th-century communion rail, with turned posts and balusters, is also present. A fresco on the chancel’s south wall depicts the martyrdom of Becket and the choir stalls have head carvings on their poppyhead ends.