Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a parish church dating from the 11th century, with significant remodelling in the 13th and 15th centuries. The building is constructed of flint with limestone and red brick dressings, and features lead roofs over the nave, aisle and porch, whilst the chancel is slated.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, north aisle, south porch and chancel. The round west tower, probably dating from the late 11th century, is divided into stages by three stone bands. It has a round-headed west window and round-headed lancets at the cardinal points in the lower stages. The bell stage features 2-light openings with triangular heads and restored central shafts with scallop capitals, surrounded by billet moulded surrounds. Above this sits a corbel table topped by a 15th-century embattled parapet of flushwork chequering.

The 15th-century south porch has angle buttresses to the gable and is decorated with knapped flint and flushwork around the arch. An ogee-headed niche sits under a square hood mould above the arch. The porch contains a blocked west window and an east window of two lights with cusped heads. The arch-braced porch roof is supported on wallposts set on head corbels, though two corbels are missing on the west side.

The south doorway is very fine and elaborate, featuring shafts with decorated scallop capitals and roll, scallop, zigzag and chip mouldings to the arch. Good early ironwork survives on the south door. Above the door is a seated figure in a semi-circular headed niche with decorated engaged shafts and a roll-moulded and decorated arch. The south nave and chancel windows are largely renewed, with 2-light Perpendicular tracery under segmental pointed arches with stilted drip moulds. Staged buttresses divide the bays. The south-west bay of the chancel has a blocked red brick arched opening below the window and two blocked circular windows. A plain-chamfered priests door opens to the east of the window. Diagonal buttresses flank the east wall, which has a gable parapet with a cross-finial. The 19th-century 4-light Geometrical east window has its cill level raised in red brick. The north-west bay of the chancel contains a 15th-century 2-light window flanked by blocked circular openings, and a 3-light east window to the aisle with square head and drip mould.

The north clerestorey has four bays of 14th-century quatrefoil lights set within red brick arches. The north aisle contains two 2-light windows of 13th-century 'Y' tracery design and, at the north-west corner, a fine north doorway with billet hood mould and shaft with scallop and roll-moulded arches, though the shafts have since been removed. A 3-light intersected window lights the west wall of the aisle.

The interior contains a north arcade of five bays. The arches of bays 1, 3 and 5 have a triple chamfer with no imposts, whilst bays 2 and 4 have plain arches with imposts, possibly dating from the 12th century. Two small niches are set in the western face of the western arch. The nave and chancel have arch-braced roofs, with the nave roof supported on wallposts set on corbel heads. The aisle has a good arch-braced roof with principals set on wallposts and corbels, with some head-corbels surviving. A tall, narrow tower arch with plain imposts is surmounted by a semi-circular headed doorway. The chancel arch dates from the early 14th century and is quadrant moulded with half-shafts. A 14th-century double piscina sits in the south-east corner of the chancel. A wall monument to C. Ashby, rector of Haddiscoe (died 1671), stands in the north-east corner. Head corbels for a lenten veil are set into the mid north and south walls. 17th-century memorial slabs are set into the nave floor.

The octagonal font dates from the 15th century, possibly re-cut, and is decorated with angels and the signs of the Evangelists around the bowl and four lions around the stem. Fragments of wall paintings survive, including a 14th-century St Christopher on the north wall of the nave with half a painted consecration cross, and fragments of a black-letter inscription on the south wall.