Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a church with a 13th-century tower and largely 14th and 15th-century origins, located just off Higham Road in Higham. A porch was added around 1893 by W.H.A. Berry, and the church was restored in 1888 at a cost of £1,500. The church is constructed of coursed flint with knapped flint to the chancel, ashlar dressings, and a plain tile roof.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave with a four-bay north aisle, a porch, and a two-bay chancel. The tower is three-stage with offset diagonal buttresses and a stair turret to the south. It features a renewed west door and a basket-arched west window with Perpendicular tracery. Small lancet windows are present on the west and north faces at the second stage, along with two-light restored bell openings. Quoins and an embattled parapet top the tower. The north aisle, roofed separately from the nave, has offset buttresses. It has a renewed west window head, and two-light flat-headed windows with ogee lights, likely dating to the late 14th century, although some stonework has been replaced. A gabled timber porch contains a continuously-moulded two-centred door. A three-light basket-arched window with Perpendicular tracery is located at the east end of the aisle. On the south side of the nave is a blocked south door with a renewed head, restored buttresses, and two replaced windows with Perpendicular tracery. A two-light flat-headed window to the west of the door has been partly renewed. The chancel has renewed four-centred windows with Perpendicular tracery, hoodmoulds, and arches of red brick and flint; the east window has intersecting tracery, also renewed. Diagonal offset buttresses, and flushwork to part of the plinth are present. A blocked priest’s door is on the south side.

Inside, the nave arcade has piers with four filleted shafts and slender polygonal shafts at the angles. Band capitals display alternating patterns of fleurons and vine scrolls. The arches are finely-moulded with hoodmoulds featuring head or foliate stops. The nave roof is 19th-century but incorporates three medieval chamfered arch braces that form pointed arches, resting on head corbels. The aisle roof is from the 16th century, featuring moulded beams on short wall posts with head corbels, arched braces with tracery to the spandrels, a leaf scroll to the longitudinal beams, and moulded joists with run-out stops. A wall plate with angels and fleurons is present, and the rafters are probably renewed. A disused, broken, panelled octagonal font, four original poppy heads incorporated into 19th-century pews, and an ogee-arched nave piscina are also found within. The door to the tower stairs has an original studded door with strap hinges. The 19th-century timber chancel arch holds a pair of saints in canopied niches on corbels. The chancel roof includes elements from around 1500, such as a brattished wall plate, capitals to truncated wall shafts at bay divisions, and moulded arch braces incorporated into a 19th-century wagon roof. A four-centred piscina with fleurons is likely renewed. A marble and ceramic tile reredos dating to 1892 is also present. The chancel is considered the most extensively restored part of the church; its walls may have been refaced or even rebuilt externally.