Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Hinderclay

Parish church of St Mary stands on the north side of Rickinghall Road. The building dates from circa 1200, with significant later additions and alterations: the chancel was rebuilt and a south porch added in the 14th century, while a tower was constructed in the 15th century. Major restorations were undertaken in 1842, 1852, 1871, 1881 and 1897.

The church is constructed of flint rubble with ashlar and red brick dressings, with parts cement rendered and some knapped flint work. The roofs are steeply pitched with slate coverings. The plan comprises a small nave with a separately roofed south aisle, south porch, chancel, and west tower.

The 15th-century tower is square and three storeys in height. It features a chequerwork plinth with moulded offsets. To the west is a Y-traceried two-light pointed arched window. The second stage has a louvred slit opening, and a string course leads to the belfry with large tall square-headed traceried openings containing two ogee-headed lights, with mask-stopped hoodmoulds and transoms beneath chequerwork panels with cusped ogee-headed tracery. The east face has no chequerwork. Three-stage diagonal buttresses rise two storeys; straight buttresses face east. An embattled flushwork parapet with traceried initialed panels crowns the tower, which has gargoyles to north and south. To the south is a canted stair turret with two slit openings, and to the north an angled projection rises from the east buttress. The line of an earlier, taller roof is visible on the tower's east face.

The nave's north wall has an original blocked pointed arched entrance west of centre, with double chamfering and semi-octagonal responds with simply moulded impost blocks. Towards the west is a two-light window with cusped ogee-headed lights and a four-centred arched head with hoodmould. Towards the east a narrower two-light window has a depressed arched head, with a buttress and two restored windows of two and three lights, cusped ogee-headed lights, square heads and hoodmoulds. A two-stage buttress stands to the north east. The nave's east gable has moulded kneelers to its coped parapet.

The south aisle contains two three-light 15th-century windows with cusped arched-headed lights in square heads with hoodmoulds. A chamfered pointed arched entrance leads to the early 14th-century south porch, which retains an early strap-hinged door in timber. The porch has an outer chamfered pointed arch, a renewed brick base to the returns, and renewed boarded sides with fragments of original cusped traceried openings. Inside, coved wallplates support an arched braced tie beam. The aisle's west side has a two-stage diagonal brick buttress and a two-light window with a four-centred arched head, cusped lights and rectilinear tracery with hoodmould, its lower part blocked. The parapet here was rebuilt in red brick, with a gargoyle in the angle between the aisle and the tower stair turret. The aisle's east side has a three-light square-headed window with cusped ogee-headed lights and hoodmould, with a coped gable parapet.

The chancel has a three-light 14th-century pointed arched east window with reticulated tracery and hoodmould, with moulded kneelers to the coped gable parapet bearing a ridge cross. The chancel is unbuttressed and has a scratch dial on the south east quoin. To the south is a low side door in a hollow-chamfered pointed arch with a stopped hoodmould, flanked by two 14th-century two-light pointed arched windows with reticulated tracery; the western window is a transomed low side window. To the north is a two-light pointed arched window with cusped Y tracery and hoodmould.

The interior contains a 14th-century pointed chancel arch with hollow and wave moulding, semi-octagonal responds with moulded caps. A sharply pointed 15th-century tower arch has outer chamfers with a middle hollow mould and semi-octagonal responds with moulded caps and bases. The original nave arcade comprises four bays of double hollow-moulded pointed arches on short round piers with ring-moulded abaci. The roofs are ceiled; the south aisle has a moulded wallplate. The south aisle west window has a simply moulded rear arch, while chancel windows have hollow-moulded rear arches. In the tower is a splayed pointed arched entrance to the stair turret.

The chancel's south wall contains a restored 14th-century angle piscina with shafts bearing moulded caps and bases, cusped arched openings and a quatrefoil bowl. Beside it are dropped sill sedilia adjacent to the window. The nave's north east angle retains a remnant of the rood loft.

Early 17th-century poppy-head ended benches are scattered throughout the nave, one dated 1617 with initials 'RL.TC' and 'JSF.SK', with varying diamond-shaped terminals; some are restored and two have lozenge patterning. The south aisle contains three large late 18th and early 19th-century box pews with raised fielded panelling and ramped sides. The nave's east end has mid-19th-century seating and an early 19th-century semi-octagonal panelled pulpit.

A 19th-century chancel screen reincorporates five old wooden traceried panels to each side, with fielded panelled dado, and a cornice formed from a reused wooden moulded beam. A plain octagonal font stands in the nave with a rebuilt stem. A mid-19th-century panelled Gothic screen separates the vestry in the south aisle, with a similar screen to the tower. Painted Royal Arms of George III appear in the tower arch.

A memorial to G. Thompson, died 1711, is fixed to the chancel's north wall. It comprises an inscribed slate tablet within an ashlar surround, with flanking putti and seraphs below a cornice, arms in a cartouche with garlands, and two seraphs with a heart below the base.

Fragments of early glass remain in the chancel's east window and the nave's north windows. The south aisle contains stained glass of 1975 by R. Rutherford.