Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church dating to 1821-23, designed by Sir Robert Smirke as part of the Commissioners' churches. Sir A.W. Blomfield undertook some internal remodelling in 1874. The church is constructed of stock brick and Bath or Chilmark stone. It is rectangular in plan, featuring an axial south tower and portico. Greek Revival details are concentrated on the portico and tower. The building is two storeys high, with nine bays on the sides, five bays at the east and west ends. The tower and portico project from the three centre bays of the south side. The portico includes architraved flanking doorways and a corniced doorway at the base of the tower, with a flush-panelled door set within pilaster reveals. The sides have square, architraved lower-level windows and tall, semicircular arched upper-level windows, recessed for one order and lined out in stone with simple archivolts linked by an impost string. Similar, but narrower, windows are located on the second level of the tower, within the portico. A tripartite, pedimented window is positioned at the east end. The west front has five bays with a three-bay, slightly advanced pedimented centre; an architraved central doorway is surmounted by a cornice on console, and the fenestration is similar to the rest of the west front. A plinth and crowning cornice with a blocking course are present. The bowed ashlar south portico features a giant order of unfluted Ionic columns, a deep entablature, and a parapet with blind panels displaying a vertical loop pattern. The attenuated circular tower rises in three stages from a plain drum base. The main stage has an engaged order of fluted columns with Graeco-Egyptian capitals, supporting a deep entablature and acroteria to the blocking course. A wreathed clock is set within the drum base, and the tower is topped with an arcaded cupola, a stone dome, and a cross finial. The interior includes a simple, shallow segmental vault carried on the columns of the gallery, with the nave-level gallery supports modified by Blomfield.