Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a medieval church, significantly altered in the 18th century. The east end retains elements of a chancel, now a north chapel with a surviving piscina in the south east corner, and a south chapel of about 1500, which is now the chancel. The rest of the building dates primarily to 1724, comprising a nave and a north aisle of almost equal width, a porch (dated), and a western tower (dated 1735) attached to the north aisle. This work was undertaken by John James, a pupil of Christopher Wren.

The interior is organised into five narrow bays, featuring a plain round-arched arcade supported on square piers with simple bands and a plinth. The exterior brick walling is notable for its use of blue headers with red flush dressings, forming a diaper pattern with jambs, intermediate verticals, and arches which have blue headers alternating. Round-headed windows display stone keys, impost blocks, and cills.

The three-stage tower is marked by double projecting bands, a plinth, a crenellated parapet, and tapering pinnacles above panelled corners. The belfry stage has coupled brick openings within an arched frame, with brick keys and impost blocks. A cambered panel is present on the centre stage and a similar panel or window above an arched recess on the lower stage. Pilasters define the corners of the nave and aisle, while the main (west) gable features an arched panel below a brick dentil band at eaves level. The plain gabled porch, centrally located on the south (symmetrical) elevation of the nave, has an arched entrance and matching details.

The east end is rendered externally with corner brick buttresses and a three-light window on the south side; the two east windows have ‘restored Gothic’ tracery. Inside, a notable chancel screen dates to 1730, designed as a Roman arcade of three bays in the Tuscan order. The church also contains several 18th-century wall tablets, an alabaster female figure on a panelled tomb (circa 1860), a memorial font of 1867, and a Royal Coat of Arms on the west wall. Charles Kingsley served as rector from 1844 to 1875, and the church is listed at Grade I partly due to its historical associations with him.