Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church largely dating to the late 14th century, with a 15th-century tower, and restorations in 1875-76 and the tower in 1890. It is constructed of flint with ashlar dressings and slate roofs, comprising a west tower, nave, aisles, and chancel.

The four-stage west tower has angle buttresses with flushwork decoration. It features a plinth with a cusped wavy motif, an elaborately wave-moulded west doorway with shields in the jambs, vegetative carved spandrels, a square surround, and a frieze of shields. Above this doorway is a three-light Perpendicular window, also with shields in the jambs, carved spandrels, and a square surround. This window interrupts a string course and sits below an ogeed cusped statuary niche. The ringing chamber has traceried square ventilation panels, and the belfry windows are two-light, cusped. A flushwork crenellated parapet is topped with trefoils and quatrefoils in panels. The nave has stepped side buttresses angled to the corners. Four side windows of three lights each are present in the aisles, alternating between a four-petal motif and the divergent supermullion style. Aisle west windows are of petal form, while east windows utilize the supermullion design, all of which are renewed. A two-story, square south porch is supported by diagonal buttresses, featuring an ogee-moulded entrance arch in a square surround with carved spandrels, a statuary niche, and a wall sundial above. It has a crenellated flushwork parapet extending west over a polygonal parvis stair turret, with slit lights on the first floor. A moulded north doorway is also present. The chancel was heavily restored. A priest’s door is located to the south under a depressed arch. The east window is a four-light window of petal type, without buttresses or flanking windows.

The interior includes a five-bay octagonal arcade with polygonal capitals and bases, having double-chamfered arches. It features a 19th-century arch-braced nave roof and aisle roofs with principals on arched braces to foliate corbels. The wave-moulded tower arch has circular responds with polygonal bases and polygonal crenellated capitals. A 14th-century octagonal font has bowl and stem panels alternating between two-light ogeed tracery and leaf motifs, with double-chamfered edges. A double-chamfered chancel arch is supported by polygonal responds. A two-bay 19th-century chancel roof has false hammerbeams. A tomb chest is situated at the east end of the north aisle, featuring three large and four small panels; the larger panels are decorated with cartouches. A wall monument to John Calthrop from 1688 features a bowed marble inscription panel between a pair of Ionic columns supporting an entablature and an achievement.