Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church of the 14th and 15th centuries, built throughout in Perpendicular style. The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a north porch, and a west tower, with a small vestry added later to the north side of the chancel.

The exterior is constructed of random kidney flint with strap pointing and freestone dressings. The nave and aisles have lead roofs, while the chancel is covered with plaintiles. The five-stage west tower has a moulded freestone base and random black knapped flint to the lower stages mixed with small stone blocks. The buttresses are diagonal on the west end and faced with freestone, stepped in four stages. A stair turret with four small slit windows rises on the south side. The west door features a continuous multiple moulding to the arch and hood-mould, with a three-light window above containing mouchettes in the tracery. Two-light cusped windows light each face of the top stage. The parapet is embattled and faced with trefoil flushwork panels, with corner pinnacles decorated with heraldic beasts.

The north aisle has a base of lozenge-patterned flushwork and three three-light windows with cusped traceried heads. Diagonal stepped buttresses to east and west are faced with flint and stone panels. The north porch projects prominently and is faced entirely in lozenge-patterned flushwork. An empty ogee-headed niche sits above the doorway. The porch has a shallow-pitched open timber roof with an embattled cornice, stone benches along the side walls with wooden panelling above, inscribed and dated 1541. The north doorway has a continuous moulded arch and hood-mould with supporting heads.

The south aisle has a base of large square freestone blocks alternating with flushwork panels, and four three-light traceried windows. The south doorway features a continuous arch. A clerestory with twelve closely-set two-light windows on both north and south sides has four-centred arched heads with red brick, black knapped flint and flushwork panels between.

The chancel contains a small priest's door on the north and a projecting turret for the rood stairs. Two 19th-century restored three-light windows in Perpendicular style light the south side, and a 19th-century five-light east window contains fragments of medieval stained glass in its traceried head.

The interior features matching nave arcades in seven bays with fluted octagonal piers topped with small cusped blank ogee arches to each face, and double-chamfered arches. A very fine low-pitched nave roof has tie-beams alternating with hammerbeams, making fourteen short bays altogether. The shafts for the hammerbeams and braces descend between the clerestory windows. Both tie-beams and hammerbeams are moulded with two rows of brattishing, and in the spandrels of the supporting braces, suns in splendour alternate with stars. A moulded ridge-piece and embattled purlins feature large flowers at the intersections of the main timbers. The matching cornice also has double brattishing and arched spandrels below decorated with stars. Tenons at the ends of the hammers show where angels or figures should have been. The main timbers retain traces of colour and patterning.

An ornate octagonal font in Decorated style is strikingly similar to that at St Nicholas, Rattlesden, Suffolk. It has a panelled base; each face of the bowl, supported on crowned heads, features a flamboyant ogee arch with droplets; the top is crenellated; there is no cover. A fine rood-screen said to date from 1441 is complete to the coving and cresting, with tall one-light divisions featuring flamboyant ogee arches and a dado with traceried panels painted alternately in red and dark green.

The interior underwent restoration in 1878. Most main fittings date from this restoration: benches, stone pulpit, reredos below the east window, and chancel roof. A few old poppy-head bench ends remain in the chancel and south aisle. A repaired trefoil-headed piscina sits in the south-east corner of the chancel, with another in the south aisle. A considerable amount of medieval stained and painted glass appears in the tracery and lights of the east window. Wall tablets to members of the Hunt family are on the north and south chancel walls. At the east end of the south aisle are a medieval sepulchral slab and a few incised encaustic tiles with faces, similar to those at All Saints, Icklingham, Suffolk. A medieval iron-bound parish chest is preserved. Arms of George III hang over the south door. A 'Virgin crant' hangs above the nave arcade, on which garlands were hung in memory of Mary Boyce, who died in 1685 aged twenty. The north and south aisle roofs each comprise fourteen bays with ogee-moulded main beams, very large plain joists, and a brattished cornice.