Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

Parish church of 12th-century origin, largely rebuilt in the 13th century. The church was restored between 1847 and 1902, with particularly extensive work in 1853. It is constructed of flint with a plain tiled roof.

The building comprises a chancel, nave with aisles, a south porch, and a western tower with lean-to annexes. The four-stage tower features clasping buttresses that are thickened at the base to an octagonal shape and pierced with pointed arches, possibly over a processional path. The buttress upper stages are decorated with blank almond and circular shaped panels. The main stage has three lancets set within trefoiled arcading with attached shafts, while the top stage is corbelled. A north-eastern rectangular stair turret ascends the tower.

The south face displays a 12th-century Romanesque doorway, now behind a 19th-century pentice. The doorway has hollow and roll-moulded orders with attached shafts; the lintel and tympanum were altered in 1853. Romanesque windows also survive in the north and south walls of the tower. The lean-to aisles have quatrefoil west windows. The west wall of the tower displays a fine 18th-century clock face with an egg and tongue circular surround. Most fenestration dates to the 19th century, including trefoiled clerestorey windows, though lancets survive in the chancel—five on each side, with buttresses. One south buttress bears a mutilated Sheila-na-gig carving. The north aisle contains two 15th-century three-light windows with square label heads. The small south porch has a single chamfered doorway with a hoodmould.

Interior

The tower arch and nave arcades follow the same 13th-century pattern, with round piers or responds standing on moulded bases with beaded capitals and double chamfered arches. Similar arches connect the tower to side annexes, with flying buttresses; the northern buttress is finely moulded and of late 13th-century date. The nave arcade comprises five bays, with the eastern arch pinched. The central southern pier is a later insertion, octagonal in plan but with mouldings matching the rest of the arcade and additional stylised foliation on the abacus. A continuous hood mould is carried over the arches. Two string courses run at clerestorey level, one forming the base of the clerestorey windows and the other raised to form drips. The nave roof comprises six renewed slender crown posts. Lean-to aisles flank the nave.

The chancel arch is double chamfered, with the inner order carried on polygonal corbels with stiff-leaf sprig. Pierced quatrefoils to the left and right of the arch are visible, and the upper stage of the nave east wall steps back. The quatrefoils pass through to trefoil-headed arched reveals in the chancel. The chancel comprises five bays with two string courses, the upper raised over windows to form drips as in the nave clerestorey. The south-eastern window has a discontinuous string with the reveal carried down to the lower string; other window reveals are splayed. A triple lancet west window has trilobed heads and detached, ringed shafts, with a small roundel in the gable head above. The chancel roof is braced rafter construction.

Fittings and monuments

A piscina exists in the chancel, with a large moulded and cusped piscina in the north aisle and another in the south aisle. An aumbry with an arched head is set in the north wall of the chancel. The altar rails, reredos, candelabra, and font box-pews are all 19th-century. An 18th-century chandelier in the tower comprises two tiers of five branches over a further ten.

The octagonal inserted pier in the nave bears a Dominical Circle for computing Holy Days, carved in 1327 and very rare of its type.

Wall paintings over the chancel arch comprise four tiers of roundels dating to the 13th century, numbering 28 in all, decorated with devices of trefoil flowers, doves, lions, and dragons, associated with the rood. Corbels for a rood loft survive. Two painted text cartouches on the nave north wall, dated 1721, are 18th-century. Two hatchments of the Bargrave family and sculptured Royal Arms hang over the tower arch, dated 1821 and given by Thomas Moulden of Statenborough House.

Monuments include a brass in the chancel to Thomas Nevynson, died 1590, depicting figures of a ruffed knight and his lady, almost 3 feet long, with inscription and arms, reset before the altar. An iron tilting helm hangs on the wall above, surmounted by the Nevison crest. A wall monument to John Broadley, died 1784, is signed J. Bacon, London, 1785, and features a medallion portrait bust with oak leaf wreath, the staff and snake of the medical profession, and an obelisk-shaped background. Edward George Bays, died 1801, is commemorated by a wall plaque of an urn in half relief signed Coade and Sealy, Lambeth.

In the south aisle, monuments include a wall plaque to Thomas Pettman, died 1791, with an urn on a reeded column and a shield in relief. Thomas Boteler, died 1768 (monument erected 1774), has a black and white marble plaque with enriched scrolled sides and a segmental head. John Paramour, died 1737, has a large white marble architectural wall monument with Ionic columns supporting a broken pediment, with an achievement on a base of three cherubs' heads; this monument was removed from the chancel in 1865. Reverend Drue Astley Cressener, died 1746, has an identical paired monument. Two black marble plaques with scrolled sides, achievements, and gold lettering are set into two of the south arcade piers, commemorating Reverend Richard Harvey, died 1772, and Catherine Springette, died 1762. Robert Bargrave, died 1779, has a wall plaque in the nave with an obelisk on an enriched neo-classical base with a cameo portrait and urn.

In the north aisle, Sarah Boteler, died 1777, is commemorated by a monument by William Tyler: a black obelisk surround with a figure of a woman leaning on a draped urn, pointing towards her infant son who reaches up to her; she died in childbirth. Richard Kelly, died 1768, has a white marble hanging cartouche with cherubs' heads. Captain John Harvey, died 1794, has a monument signed J. Bacon, London, with an inscription on a large black obelisk and below it a circular relief depicting the battle of Ushant, the "Memorable First of June", with an angel holding scales and a victor's palm. This relief is said to be from the monument in Westminster Abbey commemorating the battle.