Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a medieval parish church that has been much worked over, particularly during restoration campaigns in the 19th century and 1980s. The building is constructed of flint and stone with stone dressings and brick, with parts rendered and lined to resemble ashlar. The roofs are covered in plain tiles.

The church comprises a nave, chancel, south tower, north chapel and north vestry. The square tower dates to the 14th century and stands against the middle bay of the nave. It has three stages and a brick embattled parapet. Angle buttresses mark the junction with the nave. The outer south doorway has polygonal responds with moulded capitals, an arch of one chamfered order and two hollows with fillets, a continuous outer double ogee moulding and a hood mould. Above is a single trefoil-headed light with a hood mould lighting the ringing chamber. The bell openings are louvred on the south and west faces; that on the south side was formerly traceried. On the east face is a Perpendicular cusped traceried two-light opening with a stilted head, its cill positioned below the bell stage. The inner south doorway has multiple moulded orders including a wave with fillets and deeply incised V and hollow chamfer details, with a scroll-moulded hood featuring figure stops. The outer order forms a taller arch with wave-moulded jambs running into a hollow-chamfered arch.

The nave has a three-light Perpendicular-style west window of 1980s date. North and south diagonal buttresses are visible on the nave exterior. The rendered south wall west of the tower has no openings. The north wall contains a blocked doorway with multiple mouldings and a hood mould bearing one figure stop. On the south nave wall east of the tower is a two-light 14th-century window with curvilinear tracery, much restored in the 19th century.

The chancel is lit by two two-light windows with cusped Y-tracery and almost triangular heads, their stops worn or broken, both restored. A priest's doorway has a chamfered four-centred arch and hood mould. The east window is a fine three-light Perpendicular window with supermullions and an embattled transom, with lower cusped main lights of equal size. Under a catslide roof to the north, a two-light Y-tracery vestry window provides light.

The north chapel dates to the 16th century and later. It has a tall stone plinth, part rendered, and a white brick embattled parapet. Two windows of 19th-century plain lights sit beneath 16th-century moulded brick four-centred arched hoods. Similar moulded brick hoods crown a blocked doorway and blocked west window of the chapel.

Internally, a three-bay north arcade between nave and chapel features 19th-century octagonal piers with hollow and wave-moulded arches. A blocked north doorway has a chamfered rear arch. Perpendicular shafts adorn the rear arch of the west window. The nave roof is of 19th-century scissor-braced construction on an embattled wallplate. The chancel has a timber arch and a plastered roof with an embattled and coved cornice. A rood stair is discernible in its remains.

A piscina retains the remains of an elaborate canopy with what appear to be a lion and lamb to left and right and a human figure above, with a quatrefoil drain beneath a cusped head. Sedilia are present. The base of a 15th-century timber screen survives, its panels with blind cushed heads in pairs between moulded shafts and a band of encircled trefoils at the base. Much original colour remains, with the panels depicting saints. A Jacobean seven-sided carved pulpit on a stem is a notable feature. The font dates to the 15th century and belongs to the East Anglian school, with an octagonal bowl supported by angels. The panels alternate between a rose and an angel bearing a shield, with a band of roses below the bowl, and a stem supported by lions alternating with moulded shafts. An early framed door with original strap hinges bearing incised decoration is preserved.

The interior contains numerous monuments. In the chapel: (1) Thomas Blofse, died 23 May 1722, and his first and second wives, a marble monument with a rectangular inscribed panel between pilasters with simplified acanthus capitals and a similar frieze, weeping amorini flanking a gadrooned base, and a coved cornice crowned by an open segmental pediment on coloured marble pilasters, capped with an urn and containing a seated amorino with skulls to each side. A separate panel beneath bears the inscription to Tobias Blofse, son of the above. (2) Elizabeth, oldest daughter of Robert D'Arcy, wife of Thomas Blofe, died 8 December 1653, a marble monument with a rectangular ground containing an oval panel with a swagged surround and achievement, beneath which are kneeling weepers flanking a prayer desk, with a scrolled apron bearing a pelican and facetted bosses to each side. (3) Elizabeth, wife of Tobias Hunt, grandson to Tobias Blosse, died 27 October 1727, a marble monument with a rectangular inscribed panel between scrolled brackets rising to Ionic capitals, a moulded cornice with achievement above, a gadrooned base, foliate feet, and a reversed gadroon apron above a cherub's head. (4) In the nave, Arabella Garrc, died 7 December 1760, a marble monument with a rectangular inscribed panel between scrolled brackets, veined marble entablature, a grey marble base and apron with a winged cherub above a scroll. (5) A floor brass on stone depicting three figures of a knight and two wives, thought to represent John Goldingham, died 1518, and his two wives Jane and Thomasine, with a blank indent. (6) Five back stone floor tablets, dated circa 1632–1693, commemorating members of the Blosse family. (7) A wall monument to Sir Robert Harland, Bart, Admiral of the Blue, died 1784, a simple rectangular marble tablet with paterae to the feet and an entablature carrying small urns flanking an achievement, with details of his distinguished naval career, flanked by monuments to his wife and daughters.