Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a mediaeval church with significant alterations dating to the 19th century, primarily in 1845. It comprises a nave, chancel, south aisle, a south-west tower with a porch, and a vestry added in 1868. The church is constructed of flint rubble, largely plastered except for the tower, with freestone dressings. The east chancel wall was rebuilt around 1800 using limestone rubble. A Decorated-style east window was inserted at this time, considered “modern” by D.E. Davy in 1827. The nave roof is slated, the chancel roof is plaintiled, and the aisle roof is leaded.

A plain south chancel doorway, likely from the 13th century, features a 17th-century door with reused 14th/15th-century hinges and a closing ring. Major alterations occurred in the early and mid-14th centuries, introducing Y-traceried windows and a large 3-light west window with intersecting tracery. The south aisle has two bays, with an arcade featuring heavy capitals and bases. The 3-light east aisle window is flanked by image niches, and a piscina is present for a former side-altar. A blocked 14th-century north nave doorway is flanked by single-light windows with cusped heads. The mid-14th century tower has crenellated parapets and flush-work panelling, two-light belfry openings, and lion-head gargoyles. The original, simple 14th-century south doorway was reduced in size and given a moulded stone frame in the mid-14th century. The door retains original ironmongery and cusped framing at the head. Above the outer doorway is a clock by Fordham, dating to 1737, and an earlier sundial, reportedly from 1729. The nave walls were raised in the mid-15th century, accompanied by the addition of two-light clerestory windows. The nave has a good 6-bay moulded hammerbeam roof with arch-braced high collars, which was ceiled in the 17th century with moulded plaster ribs. A limestone font, dating to around 1450, is octagonal, with figures and shields on alternating faces of the bowl and animal sculpture on the stem, set on a high octagonal plinth. A fine octagonal pulpit from around 1600 features carved and arcaded panels. The majority of the benches are from around 1845, by Henry Ringham. Some benches at the west end reuse poppyhead standards from 15th-century benches, and a choir stall also features well-carved 15th-century ends. Thirteen panels on the nave walls display scriptural texts painted directly onto the wall plaster in the 18th century; others contain The Lord's Prayer, Credence and Ten Commandments, and the arms of King Charles II. Early 19th-century wall tablets commemorate the Reverend John King and family, and Philip Meadows of Bergersh House. Several ledger slabs from the 17th and 18th centuries are set into the chancel floor, with further slabs in the nave floor. A fragment of 14th-century stained glass is in the south-west nave window. Glass by Baillie, around 1846, is in the east window, and glass by Ward and Hughes, around 1873, is in the nave.