Church Of St Matthew

Church of St Matthew

A parish church of Grade I architectural interest, principally of the 13th century with significant 14th-century additions and later Georgian work. The building stands on the south side of Church Road at Warehorne.

The church is constructed of ragstone with a brick tower and porch, beneath plain tiled roofs. It comprises a chancel, nave with aisles, a western tower, and a north porch.

The three-stage western tower dates from 1777, having been rebuilt after lightning destroyed its medieval predecessor in 1770. It features offset angle buttresses, plat bands and parapet, with a north-west stair turret. The tower carries a leaded cross-window and belfry lights, and a simple segmentally headed western doorway. The stairs within the tower were boarded over as an octagonal insert in 1820.

The north porch is dated 1784 and features red and blue chequered brick construction with a segmental gable and a dated keystone over the door bearing the inscription "1784".

The aisles display a tall plinth with 14th-century windows: two-light and three-light openings with cusped intersecting tracery. The chancel contains square-headed late 14th-century windows with cusped tracery, and a Perpendicular east window of four lights. The east window of the north aisle appears to incorporate an earlier tracery pattern built into a later 14th-century frame, suggesting restoration at some later date. A 18th-century panelled south door provides access to the south side.

Interior

The 15th-century tower arch survives as a tall arch with wave moulded surround on round moulded responds, featuring a wave and hollow chamfered inner arch.

The nave contains three-bay arcades with round piers of Bethersden marble, deep undercut capitals, and double chamfered arches. The north-western respond is decorated with a fine carved head. The roof comprises four crown posts on moulded tie beams with quatrefoil pierced knee braces.

The aisles have roofs of four short moulded crown-posts, almost as high as the nave roof. The easternmost side windows in each aisle have their reveals brought down to form seating.

The chancel has no arch, merely a stepping-in, with a roof of three spindly crown posts on one unmoulded and two moulded tie beams with blank traceried knee braces. The wall plate carries stylised flower enrichment. Windows here also have reveals brought down to create seating.

Fittings and Furnishings

A window seat to the chancel's south wall is enriched as sedilia with an integral piscina in the eastern angle. A coved niche in the western angle displays a deeply undercut naturalistic vine frieze, now damaged. An arched aumbrey occupies the east wall.

The altar area contains a 20th-century carved wooden reredos flanked by early 18th-century text boards. The south aisle holds an ogee-headed shelved piscina with an adjacent aumbrey. A simple 17th-century Bethersden marble font stands in the nave.

Box pews installed in 1738 (north side and centre) and 1839 (south side) remain in the nave. A screen to the tower features simple panels and a panelled door with scrolled and pedimented surround encasing the Royal Arms, dated 1708. The Royal Arms, text boards in the chancel (Lord's Prayer and Creed against the tower), and four sentence boards in the aisles were all painted at the same time in 1708 by the same craftsman who painted the hall archway at Leacon Hall, Warehorne.

A 19th-century altar rail and a pulpit of 1905 are also present. A lugged benefaction board dated 1824 hangs in the south aisle.

Medieval fragments of 14th-century glass survive in the north and south aisles (depicting figures) and in the chancel (heraldic and floral fragments). Patches of painted foliage appear in the south aisle and by the font in the nave.

The floor comprises quarry tiles with some old encaustic tiles throughout. A medieval coffin lid, split into three sections, lies near the south door.

Memorials include a brass plaque in the nave to Thomas Jely, died 1438; a plain white bolection-moulded wall tablet to John Camley, died 1681; and a white marble plaque at the nave east end to Joseph Hodges and family (from 1802 onwards), bearing arms on an apron with two ball finials and an urn above. A board hung below the corbel head at the north end records that J. Woolley, Churchwarden, painted the church in 1850, 1851, and 1852.