Church Of St Mary

TM 15 SW 3/8

BARHAM Church Lane Church of St. Mary

9.12.55

I Parish church, medieval with mid C19 alterations. Nave, chancel, south-west tower/porch, north chapel and vestry. A church room was added to north of nave c.1980. Flint rubble with freestone dressings; much of the fabric has random blocks of reused moulded stone. The nave clerestory and vestry have red brickwork of c.1500. Plaintiled roofs with parapet gables. The tower has a flat roof behind C19 battlemented parapets. The chancel has late C13 work: south doorway, sedilia with tall shafts and pierced trefoils, a cusped piscina, and opposite is a large niche, perhaps an aumbry. Nave rebuilt mia C14; and with it the tower which includes a porch at ground storey. Both nave doorways are hood-moulded inside and out, with grotesque corbels. A number of Y-traceried windows. Later in C14 a 2-bay chapel was added to north of nave, later to be extended. C.1500, the nave walls were raised in red brick for a 7-bay hammerbeam roof, with clerestory windows in each bay. The hammerbeams and cornice are crenellated, but the upper part of the roof was renewed with king-posts on collarbeams in C19, when the angels were also replaced. A 4- light window of c.1525 in the vestry has a frame and mullions of terracotta with early Renaissance moulding. It was commissioned by the Bacon family and is by Italian craftsmen. Unlike similar finer examples at Shrubland Hall and Henley Church, this window is ill-composed, perhaps from surplus components. The east window (in C13 style) and west window (C14 style) were introduced mid C19. In the Middleton Chapel is a fine section of C15 rood screen, no doubt removed from the chancel-arch in C18 and augmented with contemporary panelling. The C19 pulpit also has traceried and coloured panels from the same source. Carved Italian altar rails, dated 1700; of same date are panels painted with Commandments, Lord's Prayer and The Creed. A set of 5 plain C16 poppyhead benches in the nave. In the chancel is a fine C15 recessed and canopied table monument with cusped and crocketed ogee-arched head. A wall monument to Sir Richard Southwell, d.1640, with effigies of him and his wife. In the chancel floor is a brass to Robert Southwell (d.1514). A floor slab of 1629 in the chancel, and seven others of late C17 and early C18 in the nave. Upon the nave walls are 5 painted panels bearing coats of arms.

Listing NGR: TM1367950950