Church Of St Ethelbert

The Church of St Ethelbert is a parish church of medieval origin, with a chancel that was restored in 1879. It comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, south porch, and north vestry. The building is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings, with the nave and side walls of the porch plastered. The roof is continuously plaintiled. A square turret is present on the south side. The tower's plinth features a chequer pattern created with flushwork. The west doorway has been considerably renewed, retaining its original hoodmould featuring weathered carved spandrels. The west window has a plain 19th or 20th-century infilling, although the original window opening remains. Two-light belfry openings are also present. The nave's core likely dates to the late 12th century. The north doorway from this period features a single order of colonnettes with crocket capitals and a semi-circular arch with hollow and keel moulding. Various windows from the 14th and 15th centuries are also present. Two of the 14th-century windows are largely original; internally one shows shafting and a hoodmould with mutilated stops, while the other has a moulded surround. A 15th-century moulded south nave doorway exists, alongside a 15th-century porch with flushwork panelling on the facade and an embattled parapet. The entrance arch of the porch is moulded, with rose-carved spandrels. Above the entrance is an empty trefoil-headed ogee niche flanked by demi buttress-shafts. The original roof was restored. The early 14th-century chancel has a good five-light east window with intersecting tracery, alongside side windows and a priest’s doorway in Perpendicular style, all much renewed.

Inside, there is no chancel arch. The nave features a coupled rafter roof of medieval date, characterized by a pair of straight braces to each collar and ashlar pieces. At the east end, a section of the roof is panelled as a canopy of honour, with moulded ribs and fleuron bosses; the panels contain traces of 'IHS' and rose motifs, some overpainted during a 1967 restoration. The four-bay chancel roof has 15th-century trusses with long arched braces to the collars, with rafters renewed in 1879. An altered 14th-century angle piscina is present alongside a drop-sill sedilia. The font has a 13th-century bowl made of Purbeck marble. The nave has eleven poppyhead bench-ends of 15th-century date, with buttresses terminating in mutilated figures. Some of the seats are original, one featuring a good 15th-century traceried back. The remaining furnishings are largely from the late 19th century. The sanctuary contains an effigy brass to Ann Dade (1612), two early 17th-century brass inscriptions, and several late 17th and 18th-century ledger slabs, all dedicated to members of the Dade family. A wall monument made of early 17th-century alabaster, also commemorating the Dade family, is on the north wall of the sanctuary. In the south east of the nave stands an early 19th-century white marble wall monument dedicated to members of the Barker family, above which is a single hatchment.