Church Of St Mary

The Church of St. Mary is a medieval church with 19th-century alterations, located on Bury Road in Kentford. It features a nave, chancel, west tower, and south porch, constructed from flint rubble with parts of the north wall rendered. The building has dressings of clunch and limestone, along with parapet gables and prominent buttressing. The roofs are covered with concrete plain tiles, while the tower roof is flat with parapets made of gault brick.

Most of the medieval features date from the mid to late 14th century, although the chancel has an earlier core. The church has large two-light traceried windows on the north and south walls, and a three-light east window with net tracery. The nave and chancel both have moulded arched doorways that include 18th-century panelled doors, while the north nave doorway features a boarded 19th-century door. The tower boasts a fine circular 14th-century west window with fragments of 15th and 19th-century glass, and small ringing-chamber windows on three sides. The south window was replaced by a round-arched belfry opening when the tower lost its upper stage and was repaired in the 18th century using gault brick.

The south porch, added in the late 14th century, has an arched doorway with weathered pilasters and retains a mask gargoyle from the original roof, although the current purlin roof was added in the 17th century. The church features crow-stepped gables and 15th-century two-light side windows with tracery, which have since been blocked. A 19th-century sundial is located on the parapet, and there is an empty image niche above the south doorway.

Inside, the broad moulded chancel arch is in the 14th-century style but was likely rebuilt in the 19th century. The nave has a plastered canted roof, renewed in the 19th century with simple hammer beams, while the chancel features a 19th-century roof of arch-braced collar-beam trusses, also with vestigial hammer beams. The thorough restoration of the chancel in 1877 is commemorated in stained glass within a chancel window. Above the north doorway is a late 14th-century painting of three crowned figures, and extensive but faint paintings can be found throughout the nave beneath lime-wash. The church also contains an octagonal limestone font in the 15th-century style, dated 1902, and a complete set of 18th-century deal box pews in the nave.