Church Of Saint Gregory And Saint Martin

Church of Saint Gregory and Saint Martin

A parish church of 13th-century origin, substantially remodelled in the 15th century for Cardinal Archbishop John Kempe, with the east end rebuilt between 1701 and 1710. The building was restored in 1873-1878. It stands on the north side of Wye High Street.

The church is constructed of flint and rubble with a plain tiled roof. It comprises a nave with aisles, a chancel, a south-eastern tower, and a south porch. The kneelered gabled west end features a Perpendicular-style west window dating from the 1950s, and a triple-shafted and moulded 13th-century doorway. The aisles are buttressed throughout and fitted with a coved corbel table and battlements. The north aisle, which extends round to the east of the nave, is particularly notable for its fine series of grotesque heads, with some also appearing on the south side. The fenestration throughout is Perpendicular in style.

The two-storey porch has its side elevations treated as one with the aisles. The south elevation was reworked in the early 18th century, with rusticated ashlar quoins and an arch, and a round eastern angle vice. The large two-stage south-eastern tower occupies the site of a 13th-century transept and is fitted with massive triple offset diagonal buttresses and a polygonal north-eastern stair turret, crowned with battlements and pyramidal finials. The belfry lights are keyed round-headed brick openings above a simply moulded door. Many stones set into the tower record benefactors from 1701-10. The short, low chancel features a shallow apse with battlements and three round-headed windows; blocked round-headed openings are visible particularly in the north elevation. The date T.D. 1706 is recorded in the apse wall. Fine 18th-century raised and fielded panelled double doors occupy the west and south doorways. A wall plaque sunk into the north aisle commemorates John, Elizabeth and Sarah Hudson (died 1718-19) with a double skull head.

Internally, the nave comprises four bays, with the springing of a fifth to the east. The 13th-century capitals and deeply undercut moulded arches have piers remodelled with hollow chamfers in the mid-15th century. A clerestory with segmentally headed three-light windows was added at the same time. The roof is a trussed collar beam type with moulded knee-braced tie beams. The lean-to aisles have window reveals that are all segmentally headed. The south aisle contains a four-centred arched doorway to the porch upper chamber and an 18th-century round-headed door to the east leading to the tower. The chancel arch is simple and round-headed.

The chancel fittings are arranged as if for a college chapel, which the chancel indeed served from its construction, being used by the school or college opposite. Large raised and fielded panelled wainscotting with separately articulated dado panelling incorporates panelled benches on the north and south sides, with reading desks of the same pattern set on the chancel arch jambs. The panelling follows the apse round and is ramped up to form a round-headed central reredos with painted text boards, some oval. An integral altar rail with turned balusters and square principals dates to around 1706. The nave contains a 19th-century pulpit, benches, and a wooden lectern dating to 1914-18 as a war memorial. An octagonal font with roses and shields in quatrefoils has a doubled octagonal base.

Monuments include a brass to Alice Palmere (35 inches long) depicting a lady with two husbands, dating from around 1440. In the chancel: a monument to Agnes and Mary Johnson (died 1763 and 1767) with a simple urn on plaque, obelisk, and wreath, bearing the inscription "Their days were imbittered by various evils"; and a first-class wall plaque of white marble to Lady Joanna Thornhill (died 1708), the inscription recording the roll call of Royalist and Restoration faithful, surmounted by draped cherubs with only the top segment of a pediment, an arms cartouche above, and separately mounted fruity festoons, the whole supported on barley-sugar twist columns with bracketed apron and pulls, one to the right depicted weeping into his cloak. Barley-sugar columns of the same type appear on the porch to the old Wye College, which was used in part for Lady Joanna Thornhill's school foundation. A simple aedicule plaque to Mrs Elizabeth Sawbridge (died 1862) bears an obelisk, urn, and wreated portrait in profile. Eight Sawbridge hatchments are displayed in the nave and aisles. A small stone plaque over the west door records the early 18th-century contribution to the church of Thomas Gillman, bricklayer of Wye.

The mid-15th-century work in the church corresponds with Archbishop Kempe's contemporary work in his foundation at Wye College. The church was originally cruciform, with a five-bay nave and a chancel at least 60 feet longer than at present; the transepts and east end were destroyed by the collapse of the original tower in 1686.