Church Of St Mary And All Saints

Church of St Mary and All Saints

Parish church dating from the early 14th century, built in flint with stone dressings and plain tiles. The building comprises a west tower, nave with north and south aisles, south porch, and chancel.

The square west tower is decorated with shallow diagonal buttresses and features Perpendicular 3-light windows to the west. The bell openings have Y tracery, with the western opening having its apex lost. The tower is topped with an embattled parapet finished in brick dressings. The south nave is rendered, while the south aisle displays a raised parapet to the west under a tar felt roof. This aisle contains three wide openings with Y tracery and lozenge designs beneath 4-centred arches, with Y tracery to the east of the aisle. Two scratch dials are cut into the south-east quoin of the south aisle.

The south porch features a gable parapet with pantiles. Its south facade is constructed from flint flushwork combined with late 15th-century brick, similarly detailed in the dressings. The entrance has a double chamfered arch with polygonal jambs, flanked by small lancets to the porch returns. The south doorway is plain chamfered with a deeply undercut hood mould and king and queen figure stops.

The shorter north aisle contains east and west windows and two north windows matching the south aisle pattern. The north doorway echoes the design of the south doorway. The chancel has two lancets to the south, a lancet and Y tracery opening to the north, and a 2-light east window with reticulated tracery.

Interior

The interior contains a four-bay arcade to the south and a two-bay arcade to the north, both 14th century in date. These arcades feature octagonal piers with moulded capitals and double chamfered arches with hollow outer chamfers. Foliage corbels support the responds. The chancel arch is similarly detailed.

The chancel preserves a double piscina and double sedilia. A 15th-century painted screen with Decorated tracery to its panels and ogee-headed lights is positioned here. Altar rails are formed from reused Decorated tracery with brattishing from the 15th-century screen. Return stalls incorporate panels with similar tracery, and the stalls themselves contain reused wood from the former screen panels. A 17th-century table frame of unpolished wood with turned legs stands in the chancel, each leg now supported by an additional leg for stability. The frame supports a repositioned mensa of Purbeck marble. The east wall displays metal commandment and credo panelled boards.

Wall paintings on the east wall, dating to around 1300, depict the Annunciation with the Archangel to the left and the Virgin to the right. The north wall bears a mural monument of 1656 to Richard and Bridgett Scottowe, executed in black and white marble with a heraldic cartouche above. Below this are four small copper plates from the 17th and 18th centuries, finely engraved to members of the Scottowe family (silversmiths), all framed in marble. The south wall contains a mural monument of 1718 to Thomas and Mary Johnson in white marble with a convex face, sculptured arms below, and flanking Corinthian columns.

The nave features a renewed roof and brick floor. A pulpit is constructed from panels of the 15th-century screen with Decorated tracery and brattishing, matching the altar rails. Two panels to the interior retain traces of pigment, one depicting a figure. Wall paintings on the north wall include one from around 1300 showing two seated ladies with rosaries. A 13th-century octagonal font of Purbeck marble stands here, featuring shallow blank arcades to its splayed faces, with the bowl supported by a central column and eight small colonettes.

The north and south aisles retain some original rafters; the north aisle contains early boarding. Wall plates above the arcades remain, with the south aisle's plate being moulded. Stumps of former rafters project below the wall plates. A stoup is set inside the south doorway. Curved steps lead from the north aisle to the former rood loft. A former piscina to the north aisle is now located in an arcade respond, featuring a trefoil head with trefoils to its spandrels. Some wall paintings survive in the north aisle.