Church Of The Nativity Of St Mary With Brick Retaining Wall To The North

The Church of the Nativity of St Mary is a parish church, largely dating from the 14th century, with a significant restoration in 1885. It is constructed of flint with stone quoins and has a black glazed pantile roof. The building comprises a nave, north aisle, south porch, south tower, south aisle, and chancel. The clerestory was removed and the nave roof rebuilt around 1790. The west gable features a brick and stone parapet with a restored curvilinear style window below. The north aisle has a north door and three curvilinear style windows, each with two lights and a quatrefoil vessica. The south porch has a 15th-century doorway and a rebuilt brick parapet with tumbled coping. The two-stage tower has stepped diagonal buttresses to the south and a battlemented flushwork top. It contains curvilinear style windows and bell openings with Y tracery. The south aisle has one south window and one east window, and the chancel has three south windows with a 19th-century priests’ door under the central window, two windows to the north, and an east window, all in a curvilinear style. The north arcade, dating from the 14th century, consists of four bays with octagonal piers, moulded bases, and capitals. The south arcade is from the 13th century, with four bays, 14th-century responds, moulded bases, and capitals. A door within the tower arch retains medieval ironwork. The chancel has been largely rebuilt, featuring a south-side niche with curvilinear tracery, an ogee hood mould with crockets, and a piscina to the right, set on an octagonal column with base and capital. A fine monument on the north wall is likely to commemorate William de Kerdeston, who died in 1361. He is depicted lying on a bed of pebbles on a tomb chest with eight weepers, and above is a canopy with two tall ogee arches, with a pendant between the quatrefoils in the spandrels and a band of Perpendicular tracery behind. There are brasses to Sir William de Kerdeston and his wife Cecily (died 1391). A font dating from the early 13th century is square, features a shallow blind arcade, and is constructed of Purbeck Marble. Poppy head bench ends, with carvings of wild beasts, are found in the chancel and at the west end of the nave. The east window is dated 1867 and was created by A. & H. H. O’Connor. The churchyard is raised above Church Hill and retained by a red brick wall with raking buttresses attached to the north aisle wall.