Church of St. Mark

Church of St. Mark, Englefield

This is a church of 13th-century origin, substantially rebuilt and enlarged in late 13th-century neo-Gothic style in 1857 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The tower and spire were added in 1868, with further restoration undertaken in 1874 and 1891. The building is constructed of flint with Bath stone dressings, and has old tile roofs separately over the nave and aisles with parapeted gable ends. The plan comprises a north-west tower, nave, south aisle, chancel, north chapel, south porch and north vestry.

The tower and spire rises in three stages with diagonal buttresses and string courses. The stone broach spire features corbelling and carries two-light gabled lucarnes on cardinal faces, smaller gabled lucarnes above, and a weathervane. The bell stage has large two-light openings with louvres, quatrefoil plate tracery and hoodmoulds with carved stops. The second stage contains two small lancets to the north and a two-light window below; to the west there is a narrow lancet in the second stage with a shafted cusped lancet beneath in the first stage, both with hoodmoulds and carved stops. A newel turret to the south-west has a square first stage, circular second stage and conical tile roof. The tower entrance is a boarded door to the west with hoodmould and narrow lancets above and to the south.

The south aisle has a boarded door at its west end with moulded arch and hoodmould with carved stops, above which is a circular window with plate tracery in the gable end. At the east end are triple stepped lancets with continuous hoodmould and carved stops. The south side displays two pairs of lancets flanking the 13th-century south doorway, which has one order of shafts and uncut beakhead decoration; a 19th-century gabled porch adjoins this doorway with two orders of shafts, moulded arch and hoodmould with carved stops, small cusped lancets to east and west, nook shafts at corners, and an interior with three-bay blank arcade and seats.

The chancel has a cill string and angle buttresses to the east. Two two-light windows to the south are fitted with hoodmoulds and carved stops, and a large three-light east window has geometrical tracery and hoodmould with carved stops. To the north is a two-light window with hoodmould and carved stops.

The north chapel has a square-headed two-light east window and two square-headed two-light windows to the north, with a door featuring a four-centred moulded arch and returned hoodmould.

The nave's north side displays two lancets, whilst the west end has three lancets with hoodmoulds and carved stops, and a circular window with plate tracery in the gable end above.

The vestry contains two square-headed five-light windows to the east and a door to the north.

The interior contains a four-bay south aisle arcade with three moulded arches to the east having round piers, stiff-leaf capitals and hoodmoulds with carved stops, and a 19th-century chamfered arch to the west. The nave has a 19th-century four-bay roof, a reset north doorway, and end-shafted west windows. The south aisle features a 19th-century four-bay roof, east lancets with Purbeck marble shafts and carved capitals, shafted south lancets, and a squint to the north-east. A 19th-century chancel arch leads to a shafted east window with a 19th-century sedile to the south and an early 16th-century two-bay four-centred arched arcade to the north.

Fittings include a 12th-century pillar piscina in the north chapel, a 15th-century wooden screen between the chancel and north chapel, a 19th-century reredos, a 19th-century octagonal pulpit, a 19th-century octagonal font, a 13th-century font with trefoiled arcade, and a curved 13th-century image bracket in the south aisle to the east.

Monuments are numerous and significant. A chest tomb in the chancel, dated circa 1500, commemorates Thomas Englefield and features quatrefoil panels, a vaulted canopy and brasses to the east; it may also have served as an Easter sepulchre. A tablet in the north chapel commemorates John Englefield of 1605 with three figures; above it is a tablet to Milburg Alpress of 1803 showing a kneeling woman and child by an urn. The nave contains a large tablet to the Marquess of Winchester of 1675 with a poem by Dryden, and a Gothic tablet to Richard Benyon of 1854. The south aisle has two arched recesses with effigies of a knight and lady, and a Baroque tablet to Mrs. Benyon of 1777 by Thomas Carter comprising two women attending to a collapsing lady with drapery behind and an open segmental pediment above on brackets with a cartouche in the tympanum. Other monuments are also present.