Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Baconsthorpe

A medieval parish church of flint with Lincolnshire Limestone dressings and lead roof, comprising a west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, and north porch. The church was restored in 1868.

The embattled tower rises in three stages, constructed of uncoursed galletted knapped and whole flint to the first stage, knapped flint to the second and third stages and parapet. A tower clock dating to 1888 is mounted on the north face, and a weathervane depicting a pair of horses, ploughman, and tree crowns the structure. The west doorway has continuous moulding, and the west window is two-light. Bell openings consist of two trefoil-headed lights beneath a quatrefoil.

The west and north walls of the aisles are partly rendered with flint chips and contain iron conglomerate in the west wall. Both north and south aisles feature three windows each under square heads, each containing three cusped lights with panel tracery and hollow chamfered mullions. Brick buttresses support the aisles. A clerestorey runs along the north and south sides, built of large galletted knapped flints, with five windows on each side of two lights with quatrefoils above. The three clerestorey windows to the nave have arches of alternating knapped flints and bricks.

The flint chancel walls are rendered with flint chips, with some iron conglomerate in the east wall. A 19th-century east window of three lights with panel tracery lights the chancel. A diagonal stepped buttress of large knapped flints with stone dressings rises at the south-east corner. The priest's doorway and renewed two-light geometric windows occupy the south chancel wall, while a three-light east window of the south aisle has been blocked. The south doorway is moulded with continuous deep roll moulding.

The north porch, constructed in the 19th century from knapped flint, features angle buttresses and a deep roll moulded arch with shafts and angel stops. Three square lights in stone occupy each return. A 19th-century north doorway with continuous moulding and elaborate angel stops to the hood provides entry.

Internally, three-bay arcades run along both the north and south sides, each having octagonal piers and double hollow chamfered arches. The inner arches of the south arcade rise from stone corbels at either end, one carved with a grotesque and one with a 19th-century head of Christ with vines. A niche for a stoup sits in the respond to the west of the north arcade.

The nave roof, dated 1910, is arch braced with braces rising alternately from wall posts on 15th-century stone angel corbels and from wooden angel corbels. A fretwork frieze of angels and dragons runs below the principals, which are moulded, with painted heraldic bosses at the apex.

The chancel is continuous with the nave over two bays. A jambless chancel arch rises from 19th-century angel corbels, while single multi-hollow chamfered arches separate the aisles from the chancel. A 13th-century double piscina occupies the angle of a window arris, featuring an arcade of slender Purbeck marble colonettes with double quatrefoils above. Sedilia are found in the dropped window rear arch. An Easter sepulchre to the north contains a four-centred arch to a recess beneath a crocketted ogee arch with blank shields either side and a blank arcade of three ogee arches below a slab.

The chancel roof is arch braced and has been renewed. A brass tablet to Joseph Clarke, Rector (1700), with a stone surround decorated with cherubs below, is mounted in the north wall. A Purbeck marble slab with indents for a kneeling husband and wife, dating to approximately 1540, also occupies the north wall. Several heraldic ledger slabs in Tournai marble are present, including stones for Zurishaddai Lang of Baconsthorpe Hall and Zurishaddai Girdlestone, Rector (1767).

The south aisle contains a restored arch braced roof with heraldic bosses. Heraldic glass of 15th or 16th-century date, from Baconsthorpe Castle, was inserted into the windows in 1958 during restoration following bomb damage sustained in 1942. A canvas achievement of George III hangs in this aisle. A large alabaster monument on the east wall, dated 1593, commemorates Sir William and Anne Heydon with kneeling figures in three-quarter relief retaining some original pigment. Both figures are depicted under Renaissance arches with strapwork soffits, facing sinister, beneath an achievement. Several monumental brasses without matrices are affixed to the east wall, including one to Anne Heydon (1561) in heraldic mantle, various inscriptions, and arms of Dodge (1642) charged with a breast distilling milk.

A tall jambless tower arch separates the tower from the nave. A screen of 15th-century fretwork quatrefoils and roses, assembled in 1924, was installed at the tower. An octagonal font of 1866 stands on a Maltese cross base decorated with floral and geometric designs on its faces. A 19th-century screen across the north aisle incorporates fragments of a 15th-century screen.