Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

The tower dates from the 13th century, and a late 12th or early 13th century lancet survives in the south wall of the nave. The building was almost wholly refenestrated in the 15th century, and the tower buttresses and spire are probably also 15th century.

The church is constructed of flint with stone dressings. The south porch is timber-framed. The roofs are tiled with a shingled spire.

The plan comprises a nave and chancel under one roof, a south porch, a west tower, a north transeptal chapel or vestry, and a small north porch to the chancel. The west end of the nave tapers diagonally inwards towards the tower.

The west tower is 13th century and has a shingled spire. It is lit by a lancet window on the west side and small pointed windows towards the top. Diagonal buttresses were added in the later middle ages. The nave features a single very narrow late 12th or early 13th century lancet in the south wall; the remaining windows are Perpendicular. Part of a straight joint survives below the window to the east of the lancet, though its purpose is unclear. The division between nave and chancel is undistinguished, though the easternmost bay on the south side projects slightly. The chancel's east window dates from the mid-20th century following bomb damage in the Second World War. The 19th century north vestry has a chimney in its gable end and a blocked north door from the 15th or 16th century. The timber south porch has glazed windows and an Early English style south door with stiff leaf capitals.

Inside, the nave and chancel have a crown post roof. The bay over the sanctuary is boarded and painted. A blocked north door with a four-centred head is visible. The tower arch has a continuous outer order and a chamfered inner order carried on polygonal responds with polygonal moulded capitals. It is now closed by a 20th century glazed timber screen.

The church contains a plain polygonal font, a plain roll-moulded piscina, and an aumbry in the chancel. Some late medieval glass has been reset in the nave alongside 19th and 20th century glass, including a crucifixion in the east window by Eric Hone from 1950. The sanctuary has very good geometric patterned tiles. The floor elsewhere has ledger slabs; the floor level has been raised and further ledger slabs are said to survive at a lower level.

The church preserves small brasses to a civilian and his wife from around 1400 and another to Thomas Petle from around 1420. A large brass to Jacob Verzelini (1522–1606), a Venetian glass maker who worked in London from 1571 onwards, and his wife once lay in the floor. The indent for the Verzelini brass remains visible, but the brasses themselves have been reset in a new wall slab at the west end of the nave.

Downe church does not appear in the Domesday Book and was formerly a chapelry of Hayes to the north. It was a small and relatively poor parish, which is reflected in the simplicity of the architecture. In the 19th century, Charles Darwin lived at nearby Downe House, and members of his family, including his wife, brother, and some of his children, are buried in the churchyard. The church was restored in 1879 and the early 20th century, with work to designs by Joseph Clarke in 1871–3, over-restored by Daniel Bell in 1879, and a new choir vestry added in 1903–4 by George St Pierre Harvey.