Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a medieval parish church located in Flowton. It features a nave, chancel, south porch, and west tower, constructed mainly of flint rubble with freestone dressings and substantial buttressing. The roofs are covered with plain tiles. This church is an unusually complete example of an early 14th-century parish church, with some alterations from the late 14th century and around 1500.

The church has simple two-light Y-traceried side windows and hood-moulded nave doorways, some of which feature mask drip-moulds. Both the nave and chancel boast well-preserved early 14th-century roofs, characterized by long octagonal crown posts with moulded capitals and square-sectioned four-way braces, along with moulded tie-beams, arch-braces, wall posts, and cornices.

The south porch contains a moulded arched oak doorway from the early 14th century, though it was reroofed in the 17th century and repaired in red brick in the 20th century. The tower includes a moulded south doorway and quatrefoil windows in the ringing chamber. Late 14th or early 15th-century image niches flank the west window, with only the stools remaining. A gallery in the tower, dating from the 14th or 15th century, extends beyond the tower arch and was modified in the 18th century. A rare timber stair from the 14th or 15th century with triangular block treads leads up from the gallery. The top stage of the tower was demolished in the 18th century, with a faculty granted in 1747, and a pyramid roof was constructed behind brick parapets, partly using the original bell frame, which was adapted for a single bell.

The large east window, dating from the later 14th century, features reticulated tracery. Other 14th-century elements include a shafted chancel arch, a plain piscina, and a fragment of red abstract painting on the south nave wall. Around 1500, a large three-light window and a rood loft stair turret were added, both made of red brick, with a bequest for a painting of a candlebeam in 1510. The church also contains an octagonal 13th-century font with a splayed bowl, each face adorned with shallow arcading, and a 17th-century oak cover with ramped scrolls. The chancel floor features ledger slabs from 1612 and 1649, while the nave contains two more from 1643 and 1646.