Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

This is a 15th-century church built of yellow stock brick with Bath stone dressings, notably extended and significantly altered in the 20th and 21st centuries. The west tower is constructed of coursed ragstone with limestone ashlar dressing to the buttresses. The nave retains a shallow-pitched slate roof. In 2005, the Brewer Building was adjoined to the south aisle, a steel and glass structure with buttressed yellow brick facing to the ground floor south and east elevations, which now contains the main entrance, a café, community hall above, and offices.

The plan comprises a 15th-century west tower; a nave retaining elements of the 15th-century arcade; aisles with the south aisle featuring a gallery with vestry, sacristy and exhibition space below; Bishop West's chantry chapel at the east end of the north aisle; and a chancel now containing meeting rooms on two levels. The 2005 Brewer Building forms the new main entrance and community facilities.

The west tower rises in three stages with an embattled parapet, a stair turret in the north-east corner, diagonal buttresses, and string courses. The upper stage has paired arched windows with louvers set within a square hood mould. The middle stage displays restored round clock faces in moulded surrounds on two elevations. The lower stage has an arched entrance with modern glazed doors and a deeply recessed window with rectilinear tracery above. A restored sundial appears on the tower's south elevation.

The aisles are surmounted by a straight parapet and comprise five bays defined by buttresses. Each bay contains a large tracery window with pointed arch and hood mould. The windows extend to the west elevation either side of the tower. Most windows of the south aisle are now enclosed by the Brewer Building, though the window in the centre bay has been converted into an entrance to the main church body. The first bay retains an arched doorway below its window. The Brewer Building itself comprises a two-storey steel-framed glass box with a full-height lobby entrance to the west containing the main entrance and café. Yellow brick facing pierces the first floor of the south elevation with large steel-framed windows and extends one bay beyond the glazed west elevation. The chancel's east elevation is partly obscured by the rear wall of the nursery, which features a roof terrace and glazed vicar's office. This elevation retains narrow oblong windows inserted during the 1980s restoration, replacing a Gothic east window lost in a fire.

Inside, the nave arcade contains five bays with tall, moulded four-centred arches supported on compound pillars carved with angel busts at the springing of the arches. On the south arcade, the pillars abut a gallery installed in 2005. The position of the original north gallery is commemorated by the retention of 19th-century timber beams adjoining the four pillars of the north arcade. These beams support a steel corona over the sanctuary. The nave was paved with stone slabs in the 1980s and the walls remain as unfaced brick. The 1980s textured unpainted plaster ceiling features a daring deep inverted pyramidal coffered design, used in reverse beneath the organ gallery, and extends over the aisles as a zig-zag series of ridges. This ridged ceiling continues in the former chancel, constructed here of timber panels. The ground floor of the tower has a quadripartite vaulted ceiling with a central rosette dating from 1836. The chancel arch is glazed at its lower level with a timber screen concealing a mezzanine floor inserted in the 1980s over the meeting room in the former chancel.

Bishop West's chapel comprises two bays and features a fine fan-vaulted ceiling, probably based on that in the north choir aisle at St George's Chapel, Windsor (West was Dean of Windsor between 1510 and 1515). Two bosses bear the bishop's coat of arms. A pair of panelled four-centred arches opens into the chancel, with two opposing north windows. A large four-centred arch provides entry to the north aisle with a restored smaller arch and rose window above, designed by Alan Younger (1933–2004).

Fittings include black metal hanging lamps and simple wooden sanctuary furniture designed by Ronald Sims. A Portland stone font from the 1640s has been reinstated on the south side of the nave. Several notable 17th-century monuments survive. In the west tower: Richard Lusher (died 1615), in marble with a broken segmental pediment bearing allegories and coat of arms supported by Corinthian columns, with a frame of strapwork and ribbon work flanked by obelisks; Catherine Palmer (died 1619), in marble with an inscription framed by a strapwork cartouche and two Corinthian columns supporting a broken pediment surmounted by a coat of arms. On the north-west wall of the tower is a monument to Sir Thomas Dawes (died 1655) consisting of a skull atop a plinth, the surviving element of a larger memorial not fully reinstated after the 1836–37 restoration. The Bishop West chapel contains a brass and 15th- and 16th-century ledger stones set into the floor. 17th- and 18th-century ledger stones, rediscovered after the fire, are set around the altar. A collection of 18th- and 19th-century lead and brass coffin plaques is mounted on the corridor wall behind the vestry.

Stained glass dates from the 1980s by Alan Younger. In the Bishop West chapel, the east window dates from 1845 by the Whitefriars Glass Company, and the two north windows display attractive Pre-Raphaelite designs by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, dating from 1872.

The boundary to Putney High Street is marked by a low ragstone wall with stone capping and metal railings dating from 1885. The wall has three gateways with octagonal Bath stone piers topped with distinctive conical caps.