Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

A parish church of medieval origin standing on Church Street in North Creake. The building displays work from around 1300 onwards, with a significant restoration undertaken in 1897.

The church is constructed of knapped and rubble flint with stone dressings and lead roofs, comprising a west tower, nave and north aisle, south porch, and chancel.

The west tower, possibly dating to 1503, has an ashlar plinth with knapped flint facing on the west side. It rises in four stages with set-off buttresses having ashlar quoins at all four angles. The west door, a four-panel design with tracery spandrels, is set within an arch similarly decorated with tracery. Above this is a fine four-light west window with tracery head and drip mould, with a two-light square-headed Perpendicular window above. The bell chamber is lit by four three-light Perpendicular tracery windows. The tower is crowned with a battlemented parapet decorated with flushwork tracery and shields. An inscription on the east side records Ralph Blondeville, 1503.

The nave, which dates to the 15th century, comprises four bays with four lower and four clerestory three-light Perpendicular tracery windows. The unusual two-storey south elevation results from the addition of a later 15th-century knapped flint clerestory. Four south buttresses with set-offs and ashlar facings match the details of the tower buttresses, possibly indicating a 1503 date. The north side of the nave has a Perpendicular two-light west window, two straight-headed two-light north windows, and a three-light west window perhaps dating to the 17th century. A Perpendicular north door provides access to the north aisle.

The south porch is a single structure of 14th-century date with an outer arch and north and south quatrefoils, while its entrance arch is richer in detail, lacking bases or capitals.

The chancel is a four-bay structure of Decorated style associated with a 1301 date, recorded in an inscription (now lost) on the former east window. The inscription, referring to William Careltone, read "construxit hunc cancellum Anno Domini MCCCI" (he constructed this chancel in the year of the Lord 1301). The south side of the chancel displays two central two-light windows with Y-tracery featuring sub-cusped trefoiled lights and trefoil spandrels, with two further Perpendicular three-light tracery windows flanking them to north and south. A south priest's door is protected by two set-off buttresses. The roof has been heightened above the line of the circa 1300 windows. The east gable contains a five-light window with four trefoils and a central spandrel quatrefoil, its tracery likely dating to the 1897 restoration. Paired set-off angle buttresses support this gable. The chancel's north side features one central circa 1300 two-light window with trefoil-headed lights and trefoil spandrel, and a large three-light window of the same period with two canted and one upright trefoils in the spandrel. A 19th-century north vestry addition incorporates a reused 14th-century west window.

Interior

The tower arch is Perpendicular, as is the four-bay north arcade, which has octagonal piers and double hollow-chamfered arches.

The nave roof is a fine five-bay Perpendicular single hammerbeam double frame, with semi-octagonal moulded wall posts on corbels with bases and capitals, arched wall plates, and moulded brackets supporting the hammerbeams. The hammerbeams are decorated with liturgically vested angels bearing instruments. They support pierced tracery spandrel brackets above with moulded arched principals. Outstretched winged angels mark the junctions with moulded purlins and bosses where they meet the ridge. At the wall plate, moulded coving with lower brattishing is followed by two outstretched winged angels to each half-bay, an upper painted chevron moulding, a traceried panel, and crowning brattishing. Some original colour survives.

The font is a circular stone bowl, possibly of 12th-century date, with an elaborate painted and carved cover dating to the 1897 restoration. The nave contains a south-east sepulchre and piscina. The outer walls of the nave and aisle are lined with 18th-century panelling with cornice.

The north aisle has a Perpendicular arch-braced roof with central purlin and chamfered rafters. Above the north aisle north door hang the Royal Arms of Charles I. A fine traceried seven-light north aisle screen, partly of 15th-century date, divides the space. The north aisle altar, added in 1978, incorporates four painted 14th-century panels depicting Fortitude, Temperance, Mercy, and Justice.

The chancel arch is of Decorated or Perpendicular style. A 15th-century rood staircase door is located at the north-east in the north aisle, with a rood loft door against the chancel arch. An elaborate oak carved rood screen of circa 1897 in Decorated detail stands within, matching the style of the altar and reredos by Hicks. Above the chancel arch is an indistinct medieval Doom painting.

The chancel itself has four bays with an arched braced hammerbeam roof similar to the nave, largely restored and repainted in 1877. The south side displays fine but over-restored sedilia and piscina of mid-14th-century date, decorated with corbels and painted diapering. The north side contains a heavily restored circa 1300 Easter Sepulchre with cusped and sub-cusped arch, gable with open-work tracery, crockets and finial, and outer buttresses with finials. The chancel floor dates to 1897.

A brass depicts a civilian holding a church as a donor, possibly Sir William Calthorpe, who claimed in his will of 1495 to have rebuilt the church, potentially providing a date for the clerestory and roofs.

The elaborate carved and painted altar and reredos are of circa 1897, created by Hicks of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The church underwent comprehensive restoration in 1897 under the direction of architect Frederick Preedy, as a bequest from Bishop Lloyd, who served as Rector from 1894 to 1903.