Church Of St Mary

Church of St. Mary

This parish church stands on the north side of Bury Road at Rickinghall Inferior. It is a substantial medieval building with a 12th-century tower and late 13th and early 14th-century body, modified in the 15th century. The church was refitted in 1858–9 by J.D. Wyatt, and windows were restored in 1870 and 1891.

The building is constructed of flint rubble, partly cement rendered, with ashlar and red brick dressings and some knapped flintwork. Roofs are steeply pitched, finished in machine tiles and plain tiles. The plan comprises a short three-bay nave with a separately roofed south aisle or chapel of equal dimensions, a chancel, a south porch, and a west tower.

The round tower is built of coursed flint rubble. Its lower stage contains a restored two-light 14th-century window with curvilinear tracery in a segmental pointed arched head. Above are two lancets, one cusped. A string course marks the transition to the 14th-century octagonal belfry, which has four two-light openings with cusped Y tracery in segmental pointed arched heads. The corners have ashlar quoining. A string course with four gargoyles runs below the embattled parapet, which is decorated with cusped and finialed flushwork panels and blank shields set in octofoils, with crocketed finials. The eastern face of the tower shows the line of a steeper and taller 14th-century roof.

The nave to the north is cement rendered and has three Perpendicular windows with hoodmoulds and brick voussoirs. The central and eastern windows are tall three-light examples, while the western window is a two-light opening above an entrance with a segmental pointed arch, inner chamfer, and outer wavemould with a mask-stopped hoodmould. Four two-stage buttresses support the nave. The wall plate is exposed, and the gable parapets to east and west are coped, with a finial to the east.

The south aisle contains two two-light late 13th-century windows towards its eastern end. These have geometrical tracery in pointed arched heads with trefoiled lights featuring bud cusping and three quatrefoils at the head. The eastern window has richer tracery with leaf carving in the spandrels of the cusping. Both have mask-stopped hoodmoulds. The aisle's returns have two-stage diagonal buttresses with knapped flint and ashlar pinnacles, each pinnacle topped by cusped and crocketed gablets with grotesque masks and crocketed spirelets. The large five-light window at the eastern end of the aisle has a pointed arched head with cusped pointed lights and leaf-carved spandrels; the tracery was renewed as rectilinear and has a mask-stopped hoodmould with an offset at sill level. A coped parapet with a ridge cross crowns this end. The western window of the aisle is a three-light opening in a pointed arched head with restored curvilinear or intersecting tracery, coped gable parapet, and finial.

The south porch projects from the western bay of the aisle and is two storeys tall, with the upper level rebuilt in the 16th century. The 14th-century entrance arch features an outer hollow moulding dying into a filletted roll mould, an inner filletted roll and hollow dying into a chamfer, and a filletted hoodmould. Above the arch is a flushwork frieze with damaged crowned monograms marked MR and IHS. The chamber has 16th-century knapped flint facing and a cusped two-light window with a depressed arched head, topped by a shallow coped gable with a broken ridge cross. Two-stage diagonal buttresses flank the returns, each bearing two small Y-traceried pointed arched openings and a quatrefoil, with 16th-century flint above. Inside the porch, the side walls display low double arcades with hollow-moulded segmental pointed arches resting on small restored semi-octagonal shafts with moulded caps and bases. Stone seats line the sides. The roof is 16th-century, with roll and hollow-moulded binding beam and joists. The 14th-century inner entrance is a pointed arch with two continuous quadrant mouldings and a mask-stopped hoodmould.

The chancel has an offset plinth and string course below its eastern wall, which displays a restored three-light 14th-century window with a pointed arch and complex curvilinear tracery. A mask-stopped hoodmould and two-stage diagonal buttresses with cusped gablets support it; the coped gable parapet has moulded kneelers. To the north is a 15th or 16th-century two-light window with cusped ogee-headed lights, square head, and hoodmould. The south wall of the chancel has two two-light 14th-century Y-traceried windows in pointed arches; the western example has cusping, whilst the eastern is plain with a mask-stopped hoodmould. A central low side door with a restored four-centred arched head and roll-moulded jambs breaks the southern wall.

Internally, the 12th-century tower arch is plain and round, with impost bands. Above it is a blocked 12th-century round opening. The 14th-century chancel arch is broad and pointed, featuring double hollow mouldings and semi-octagonal responds with moulded caps and bases. The north capital displays stiff-leaf carving. The outer hollow moulds have cusped stops.

The four-bay nave arcade has complex quatrefoil piers with outer fillets and inner spurs, moulded bases, and ring capitals. The hollow-moulded pointed arches have outer quadrant mouldings, with 19th-century masks at the aisle springings. The six-bay nave roof is restored 15th or 16th-century work featuring false hammerbeams with arch-braced brattished collars, double brattished wallplates and hammerbeams, moulded braces, butt purlins, and a ridge piece. The aisle and chancel roofs are ceiled.

Within the south aisle, the rear arch to the east window is richly moulded with a filletted roll leaf-stopped hoodmould and double-shafted jambs; a vine scroll frieze adorns the sill. The hoodmould continues as an impost band, with a filletted roll mould at sill level extending to the southeast window. A moulded base sits to the west. The western end carries a filletted roll leaf-stopped hoodmould. A blocked banner stave cupboard with a four-centred arched head sits in the aisle's south wall. Towards the eastern end is a restored angle piscina with trefoiled openings, dogtooth and ball-flower mouldings, a stiff-leaf cap to the shaft, and crocketed and finialed gablets. Beside it is a dropped-sill sedilia. The nave north door and chancel north window have simply moulded rear arches. The chancel south wall contains a simpler 14th-century angle piscina with caps and bases to shafts, a trefoiled pointed-arched opening, and an octafoil bowl, adjacent to dropped-sill sedilia.

Furnishings include an octagonal 14th-century font in the south aisle with a moulded base; seven of its eight bowl faces display pointed arched three-light "windows" with curvilinear and Y tracery. Two 17th-century oak chests stand in the church, one with a carved three-panel front. A 17th-century Communion table with turned legs, a 17th-century chancel chair, and an 18th-century bier are also present. The 19th-century reredos reuses traceried panels with carved spandrels and cusping from a 15th-century screen, combined with 19th-century painted figures. 19th-century seating, pulpit, and reading desk by Burrell are present, along with a brass lectern, Communion rails, and floor tiling. The nave and chancel contain simple 19th-century marble mural memorials, including a tablet to J. Amys (died 1767) with a cornice in the nave to the west. Late 19th-century glass fills the chancel's eastern and southwestern windows, whilst some 17th and 18th-century fragments survive in the chancel's southeastern window.