Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church, mainly 14th and 15th century, with remains of 11th-century structure in the north wall and some 12th-century work. Much restored in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Built of flint with cement rendering; brick porch and buttresses; tile roof with slate lower verge.

The church comprises a chancel of three irregularly spaced bays, a nave of seven bays, and a west tower of three stages with broad setback angle buttresses. The chancel is not separated from the nave by an arch, but is demarcated by a single step to the choir area. This level change and the painted decorations in the chancel date to 1913 and were commissioned as a memorial to Emily Sophia Hills, as recorded on a brass fixed to a single lancet on the south side of the chancel. The timber roof framing appears to date from this 1913 refurbishment.

The chancel contains a three-light window with curvilinear tracery, late 19th-century work filled with memorial glass dated 1895. The nave has arched timber principals with plastered infill above the collar and a moulded wall plate to the underside of the roof. The roof mouldings suggest a late 15th-century date, and there is evidence the timbers may have been reused from another structure, possibly in the late medieval period. The nave has a pair of two-light 15th-century-styled windows to the north wall; a lancet with Y tracery marks the line between chancel and nave to the south; a two-light Perpendicular window stands beside the entrance porch and a two-light Decorated window to the other side. The entrance to the south of the nave dates to the 12th century. A segmental pointed arch leads to the tower.

The south porch is of brick with wooden verge boards and a pointed diaphragm arch, dating to the 18th century.

The west tower was entirely rebuilt in 1900-1 as an exact replica of the original early 14th-century structure. It has three stages with diagonal stepped buttresses extending above the parapet. The west face displays three trefoil and cinquefoil-headed niches in the upper stage, with a further trefoil-headed niche to the upper face of each buttress. The three-light west window has reticulated tracery. The top stage features a grouping of trefoiled arches and an unusual bell louvre. Two-light bell louvres appear on each of the remaining top stages of the tower.

Interior fixtures and fittings include mid to late 19th-century benches to the nave and partly removed choir stalls of the same period. An octagonal font stands at the west end, centre of the aisle. The sacrarium is enclosed by a wood and metal rail and elevated. A painted wood reredos dates to the early 20th century. A fine wooden coat of arms of James I adorns the north nave wall. An early 17th-century pulpit, mounted on a 19th or 20th-century base, may be a married piece. A holy table stands by the main door. In 1988, a new window was installed by Mrs Vernon Wentworth of Blackheath Mansion, Friston.

Excavations in 1983 and 1988 revealed significant features: a round-arched door of 11th-century date was found in the north nave wall, now exposed but blocked. To the east of the south door, a staircase probably dating to the 14th century was discovered; no evidence of this is visible from outside or within the interior.

The nave is noteworthy for having been very little restored in the 19th century.