Church Of St Mary The Virgin

TR 35 SE 5/61

RIPPLE CHURCH LANE (East side) Church of St. Mary the Virgin

GV II*

Parish Church. 1861. By Arthur Ashpitel. Flint and plain tiled roof. Nave, chancel with north vestry and western tower, all in Romanesque style and in imitation of St. Nicholas, Barfrestone. Three stage west tower with doubled belfry openings and lead spire, and west doorway with attached shafts, billet and rope-mould surround. Nave and chancel with offset buttresses, with round headed windows with roll-moulded surround brought down as attached-shafts, in the same way as at Barfrestone, with lancets in the nave, with 3 light east window and roundel over. Interior: West wall of nave with possibly genuine C12 reveal to window. Queen strut roof in nave. Chancel arch in imitation of Barfrestone, complete with twisted attached shafts and zig-zag moulded arch and side niches. Chancel with shafts to windows etc painted gold; simple round headed doorway to vestry. Fittings: octagonal font dated R P. Hatchment on west wall. Monuments: 1663 2 reset wooden plaques on nave south wall bear brass inscriptions and shields to Thomas Warren, d.1591 and William Warren d.1612, both 'chief customers' of various Cinque Ports. Captain Andrew Rand, d.1680, chancel wall tablet. Fine white marble cartouche enriched with palm fronds with an acanthus roll, draped urn over, and naval relief on the base, also incorporating the crest, a hog, of the painted coat of arms below. Robert Bowles, d.1734, and the Lynch family, from 1765 to 1789. Large wall tablet in nave with oval plaque over 2 round plaques, all with oak-leaf wreaths, central palmette supporting a shield, with corniced apron with palm fronds. At the top is an urn, from which fall ribbons tying the whole composition together - Neo-classical wall tablets to Elizabeth Herring, d.1811 in the chancel, and in the nave Robert Henson, d.1817 and Sarah Walls, d.1841, signed Bax (John Bax of Deal), with weeping palm and urn over sarcophagus, her husband Stephen Watts a native of New York, but fought for Britain in the War of Independence, d.1810 in London. Recess in nave south wall in coloured marble, a Barfrestone-style window opening, a monument to John Baker Sladen, d.1860. Painted Royal Coat-of Arms in west porch. (See B.O.E. Kent II, 1983, 434).

Listing NGR: TR3503150208