Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church largely dating from the mid-14th century, located in Old Newton near With Dagworth. It is constructed of flint rubble with areas of old plasterwork, and has freestone dressings. The chancel roof is plaintiled, while the nave roof is lower-pitched and slated. The church comprises a chancel, a north vestry, a nave, a south porch, and a west tower.

The tower features simple early or mid-14th century openings, including a pointed west doorway and Y-traceried belfry windows. Decorative flushwork panels with trefoils are present on the parapets. The nave has good traceried two-light windows of mixed designs from the mid-14th century, with carved corbels. The south chancel doorway mirrors the nave windows. The chancel side windows originally featured similar designs, but were fitted with iron mullions in a Gothic style in the late 18th century, retaining the original 14th-century hood moulds.

The late 14th-century south porch has a doorway with moulded piers, and a crocketed ogee-headed niche above. The inner south doorway has jambs in four orders, and retains the original oak doors with ovolo-moulded ribs. The east window is of 14th-century origin, but has a squat segmental-pointed head and straight mullions, which represent alterations from the 16th or 17th century. Image niches with pinnacles and crockets flank the east window on both sides. A triple sedilia and linked piscina from the mid-14th century is present, featuring four cusped ogee-heads. The vestry has a 14th-century doorway but appears largely rebuilt. The 14th-century chancel arch has moulded capitals; to the south is a window with inner shafts and a dropped cill. The chancel roof was rebuilt in a butt-purlin style in the 17th century. The nave roof was rebuilt in the late 18th century, revealing lower halves of kingposts and queenstruts beneath the ceiling; a gallery with a plain panelled front and cast iron pillars was also added at the west end during this time.

A good 15th-century font, adorned with emblems of the evangelists around an octagonal bowl and lions and wild men at the stem, stands in the nave. Jacobean benches with scrolled ends are situated at the west end of the nave. A plain panelled 17th-century pulpit is also present, along with a hatchment of George II. Several windows contain fragments of 14th-century stained glass.