Parish Church Of St Mary The Virgin

This church occupies a prominent position in Beddington Park, immediately south of what is now Carew Manor School, which from the late Middle Ages was the seat of the Carew family. The building dates primarily from the 14th and 15th centuries, with extensive Victorian alterations. Joseph Clarke was the architect for the 19th-century work, which included a vestry north of the chancel, an outer north aisle, adjoining west vestries, and much rebuilding of the nave and aisles. Dormers were added around 1914 by H P Burke Downing, and a parish centre was built in 1995.

Materials and Construction

The church is built of flint facing with limestone dressings and has red clay tiled roofs.

Plan

The church consists of a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, an outer north aisle, vestries at the west end of the north aisle, and a chancel with a south chapel (the Carew chapel) and north vestry. The chancel has a significant lean to the north.

Exterior

The west tower has four stages, diagonal buttresses on the west face, and a very large Perpendicular transomed west window. The belfry windows are of two lights under square heads, and above them the embattled parapet is a Victorian addition. There is a northeast stair turret which rises above the level of the battlements.

The south elevation has a continuous roof over the nave and south aisle, punctuated only by a pair of timber dormers inserted around 1914 (there are similar dormers on the north side of the nave). The Carew chapel is also under its own gable and projects further south than the north aisle. The windows on the south side are mostly three-light Perpendicular ones under depressed heads. The plain parapets with their sharply contrasted white stone and flint chequering, and probably the similar treatment of the base-course of the aisle, is 19th-century work.

The east window of the chancel is of five lights with early 14th-century-style tracery including a large traceried circle in the head. The four-bay outer north aisle has windows with early 14th-century tracery. At its west end is a somewhat ungainly two-storey vestry block added around 1869. To the west of this block is a double gable with paired two-light windows set above a continuous band of fenestration occupied by a pair of three-light windows under a square head and with rows of three circles in the upper parts of the lights. On the north of this block is a large, tall chimneystack.

Interior

The medieval nave consists of four bays with arcades to the aisles. The piers have four demi-octagonal projections with a recess between each. The arches have double chamfers and no hood. The north aisle is very narrow, and to its north a wider outer aisle was added in the 19th century. This outer aisle has quatrefoil piers with foliage capitals and double-chamfered arches.

At the entrance to the chancel is a tall arch with responds of three lobes with fillets. The roof over the nave is arch-braced to a collar above, in which there is a tracery infill either side of a crown-post. The chancel roof is also arch-braced, as is that in the chapel, but here there are also projecting hammer-beam-like busts of angels which carry the arch-braces. The roofs of the nave, chancel, and outer north aisle are all decorated, although darkening makes the patterns hard to recognise: the chancel roof has IHC symbols set in crowned quatrefoils.

Much of the character of the building derives from the very extensive mid-Victorian wall paintings. The nave walls are covered with patterns and roundels with angels holding scrolls, while over the chancel arch there are depictions of numerous angels. The chancel scheme depicts scenes of the Annunciation, the Visitation, and other biblical events. The east window is flanked by mosaic representations of saints, and the lower part of the sanctuary walls is revetted with alabaster slabs.

Principal Fixtures

Apart from some possible 12th-century fragments placed in the north aisle, the oldest item is the font dating from around 1200. This is a square Purbeck marble font with shallow incised arches filling each face. It stands on a central drum with four angle shafts.

Nine of the stalls have late 14th-century misericords with shields, foliage, and two heads. The screen behind to the Carew chapel is of similar date.

The pulpit dates from 1611 and has linenfold in its two tiers of sunk panels and arabesque decoration on the corners.

The 19th-century work is extensive. The largest item is a large, north European-style reredos depicting the Last Judgement at the west end of the north aisle. This is said to be either by Clayton and Bell and given in 1869, or of French or German origin. At the same time the organ screen was given. This is an early work by Morris and Company, having stylised foliage below, then a procession of six musicians, openings infilled with grids, and at the top a bracketed support for the pipes. The organ was built by T C Lewis and restored in 1992 by Henry Willis and Sons.

The triple sedilia have stone gable-headed canopies over trefoil arches and wooden dividers between the seats: they are integral with the piscina to the east. The pews have poppy heads: the ends have tracery in the east part of the nave and none in the west part. The stalls are largely 19th-century work but incorporate the misericords mentioned above. Between the chancel and nave is a tall screen with large one-light openings. The lower vestry at the west end of the outer north aisle contains some fine cupboards with Gothic detailing.

There is extensive stained glass from the 19th and 20th centuries. The east window replaces the glass lost in the Second World War and is a fine work by Patrick Nuttgens representing the Te Deum.

Monuments

There are a number of monuments of note. The oldest is a brass to Philippa Carew, who died in 1414, in the chancel floor, which also houses the brass to Nicholas Carew, who died in 1432.

In the Carew Chapel there is a fine Perpendicular recess to Sir Richard Carew, who died in 1520, and his wife: the front of the chest has large-scale quatrefoil decoration, and on its top are brass figures of the deceased. To the east of this is the elaborate monument to Sir Francis Carew, who died in 1611, whose alabaster effigy lies on top of the tomb chest with his kneeling family in relief against the front; the canopy is supported by two columns and has obelisks and an achievement at the top.

Subsidiary Features

To the west of the church is an attractive Victorian timber lych-gate carrying a large gambrel roof, probably dating from around 1868 by Clarke. There are good churchyard walls of red brick, the part adjoining the Manor House dating from the 17th century or earlier. Across the road from the lych-gate there is a 19th-century entrance gate to a burial ground: it has two openings of different sizes and above these pyramidal tile roofs of two different sizes.

History

St Mary's was intimately bound up with the Carew family from the mid-14th century. The first member to reside at Beddington was Nicholas Carew I, who acquired the lordship of this and other adjacent manors by his marriage to the daughter of the former owner, Sir Richard Willoughby. He died in 1390 and left £20 for rebuilding work at the church which probably involved the tower, porch, and possibly the chancel. He directed that four fit chaplains should pray for his soul and all Christian souls in the church.

Much of the church is the result of work in the mid-19th century. The main benefactor was the Reverend Alexander H Bridges, a wealthy man who also acquired much of the adjoining park, and who was rector from 1864 to 1891. He paid for considerable works undertaken in 1867-9 under Joseph Clarke, but it is suggested in the church guide that there were also major alterations around 1851 (not mentioned in Cherry and Pevsner). This is thought to be the date of a lithograph displayed in the church bearing Clarke's name and which shows the roof (which seems to be 19th-century work) as it is now but with the church filled with box-pews and galleries in the aisles. The east window design is also different between the lithograph and what we see today. The addition of the outer north aisle has been suggested as providing seating for girls from the Royal Female Orphanage which was housed at Beddington Manor from 1762 until 1968. The aisle may be the work of around 1851 but this is not clear. However, there can be little doubt that the lavish embellishment of the walls is an early product of Bridges' incumbency, while the style of the northwest vestries and their furnishings are of the 1860s, not the early 1850s. A tablet in the tower area commemorates the work of Bridges, by whose munificence this church was beautified and largely restored.

Joseph Clarke (1819 or 1820-1888) was a London-based architect whose practice was very largely concerned with church-building and restoration. His known works date from the middle of the 1840s until the time of his death. He was diocesan surveyor to Canterbury and Rochester and, from 1877, the newly-created diocese of St Albans. These posts helped bring in numerous commissions in these three dioceses, but he also gained jobs over a much wider geographical area and examples of his work can be found in most parts of England. He was consultant architect to the Charity Commissioners.