Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a Grade II* listed building located in Raydon, dating from the late 13th to early 14th century, with restoration carried out in 1883. It is constructed of flint with ashlar dressings, and the south side is rendered. The church features a timber porch and plain tile roofs. It has a three-bay nave with a low bell house at the west end, a south porch, and a north vestry, while the chancel is slightly lower than the nave. The square bell house has louvres and a pyramidal roof topped with a ball finial.

On the west end of the nave, there are diagonal off-set buttresses. The south side includes a probable late 19th-century gabled porch that contains the original south door, which has a continuously moulded pointed arch with a stoup to the right and a niche above. An off-set buttress is located to the east of the porch. The west window has been restored and features a two-light design with ogee-cusped Y-tracery. The central window has two cusped lights with a cusped spherical triangle in the head, while the east window has two cusped ogee lights with a cusped vesica in the head. All windows have hoodmoulds with head stops.

The north side features a 19th-century gabled vestry with windows similar to those on the south side. The chancel's south side has a central pointed priests' door flanked by shafts with moulded capitals. Off-set buttresses with cusped gables support this side. The west window here is a single cusped light topped by a trefoil under a hoodmould, with a panel of blind tracery below that may have once been open. There are two pairs of two-light windows with geometrical tracery under hoodmoulds. The north side also has two similar windows with geometrical tracery and V-shaped buttresses. Diagonal buttresses at the east end feature fine crocketed pinnacle finials. The four-light east window was replaced in 1883.

Inside, the nave includes a piscina with a cusped pointed arch. Brackets from a former rood beam flank the chancel arch, and stairs leading to the north are still visible. There is a tomb recess with a heavily-moulded cusped arch with head stops, similar to those used for Easter sepulchres. A fine piscina with open geometrical tracery is also present. A wall tablet commemorates John Mayor, who died in 1663, and is made of marble with a broken segmental pedimented aedicule.