Church Of St Mary The Virgin

This parish church dates from the late 12th century through to the 15th century, with significant restoration and refitting carried out circa 1908-1911 by F.C. Eden for the Reverend A.C. de Bourbel. The church is constructed of flint with stone dressings, except for the north chancel chapel which uses mixed flint and stone. The nave and north chancel chapel have leaded roofs, while the chancel and porches are covered with plain tiles. The building comprises a west tower, nave, south aisle with south porch, a chancel slightly narrower than the nave, north chancel chapel, north aisle, and north porch.

The West Tower

The west tower dates from the late 14th or early 15th century and rises in three stages. It has a flint plinth with chamfered stone dressing, integral angle buttresses to each corner, and an additional single buttress to the north face. The top is finished with battlements above a chamfered string course, crowned by a leaded octagonal spirelet with weathervane. The belfry stage features a pair of tall, chamfered, pointed lancets to each face. The second stage has a single hollow-chamfered pointed lancet to the north and west faces. The lower stage contains a pointed-arched west window with three trefoil-headed lights and tracery of vertical bars. The west doorway has a cavetto-moulded pointed arch with hoodmould. A polygonal north-west stair turret rises slightly taller than the tower itself and has a plain parapet.

The Nave

The nave has four 15th-century clerestorey windows to both the south and north elevations, each with two cinquefoil-headed lights, squared heads, and hoodmoulds.

The South Aisle

The south aisle originated in the late 12th century but was re-fenestrated in the late 14th or early 15th century. It has no visible plinth. Two south buttresses and a south-east angle buttress support the walls, which are topped by a stone-coped parapet above a moulded string course. The west window is tall with a cinquefoil head and lacks an overall architrave. Three untraceried south windows (one to the west and two to the east of the porch) each have two cinquefoil-headed lights with cambered heads and hoodmoulds. The east window is similar but has a square head.

The South Porch

The south porch dates from the 19th or early 20th century. It is timber-framed and rendered, built on a brick and flint base, with a gabled plain tile roof featuring bargeboards and a pendant. Each side wall has a wooden frieze of four hollow-chamfered four-centred-arched lights. The inner doorway is 14th century, pointed-arched and doubly plain-chamfered, with broach stops and a scroll-moulded hoodmould.

The Chancel

The chancel is 13th century with no plinth. It has diagonal north-east and south-east buttresses plus one south buttress. The south wall contains four windows: one 14th-century window with two ogee-headed lights, a quatrefoil in an ogival squared head and hoodmould; two tall and one shorter pointed plain-chamfered lancets. A plain-chamfered south doorway has a cambered head. The east end features three separate stepped lancets. The north elevation has been rebuilt or refaced in red and grey brick towards the top and rendered below, with no windows.

The North Chancel Chapel

The north chancel chapel is 15th century. The base of the east wall is battered, possibly evidence of a former north chancel vestry. It has a low chamfered plinth to the north, one east buttress and two north buttresses. The lean-to roof sits behind a plain stone-coped parapet with a hollow-chamfered gable-end string to the east. The east window has two cinquefoil-headed lights with a squared head and hoodmould partly formed from the string course. Two similar north windows also have hoodmoulds. Towards the base of the east wall is a rectangular recess (possibly a vestry aumbrey) with a brick head, stone jambs, and chamfered stone sill.

The North Aisle

The north aisle, like the south aisle, originated in the late 12th century and was re-fenestrated in the late 14th or early 15th century. It has no plinth. The parapet and coping continue from the north chancel chapel, with a string course to the west gable end. East of the porch are two windows: one with a four-centred-arched head and two cinquefoil-headed lights, and one pointed-arched with two ogee-headed lights and a quatrefoil in an ogival. West of the porch is a window similar to the latter. The west window is cinquefoiled without an overall architrave.

The North Porch

The north porch is built of flint with a plain tile roof and rises two storeys, with the upper storey partly rebuilt, probably in the early 20th century. It has north-east and north-west angle buttresses. The north gable is shaped, with the upper part in red and grey brick above a cogged brick band; the south gable is unshaped. The first floor has chamfered two-light brick mullion windows to east and west. A small pointed plain-chamfered ground-floor lancet appears to the east. The north doorway is doubly plain-chamfered and pointed-arched with broach stops and hoodmould, fitted with panelled double doors. The inner doorway is moulded, pointed-arched, and dates from the late 13th or early 14th century, with an undercut hoodmould (partly restored in wood) angled up at the ends with scrolled stops. It retains boarded medieval double doors.

The Interior

Structure

The nave has four-bay late 12th-century north and south arcades with bevelled pointed arches featuring bar-and-ogee stops, each arch with a moulded hoodmould. The piers are rectangular on low chamfered plinths, with chamfered leading edges and moulded abaci. The broad pointed 14th-century chancel arch has two plain-chamfered orders, the inner order springing from a moulded image corbel. Between the chancel and north chancel chapel is a late 14th or early 15th-century doubly hollow-chamfered pointed arch springing from moulded semi-octagonal columns. There is no arch between the chapel and north aisle. The pointed 14th or early 15th-century tower arch has an outer moulding descending to ground with broach stops, the inner springing from engaged semi-octagonal columns on each side with moulded capitals and bases. Scroll-moulded hoodmoulds with image-stops appear above three north-aisle and three south-aisle windows. The west window of the south aisle has engaged colonnettes to each side. A small hollow-chamfered rectangular window sits between the parvis chamber and north aisle. Evidence of a blocked north-west chancel window survives as a jamb. The north wall of the chancel contains a moulded round-headed blocked doorway. A plain-chamfered pointed-arched doorway leads to the north porch stair turret.

Roof

The nave has a combined king-post and side-purlin roof with five trusses, featuring solid-spandrel arch-braces to tie-beams and pendant posts on stone corbels. All members, including the cornice, are hollow-chamfered. The king posts have hollow-chamfered leading edges with broach stops and head-braces to the ridge purlin. Very short queen posts have apparently integral braces to the chamfered side purlins. The chancel roof is boarded in seven cants. The south aisle has a lean-to butt-purlin roof. The north aisle retains a 14th-century roof with three horizontal tie-beams between pendant posts, arch braces with spandrels pierced with geometrical designs forming pointed arches under the tie-beams, a continuous purlin with firring-pieces between it and the tie-beams, and grooves for boarded infilling between tie-beam and rafters. The north chancel chapel has a purlin borne on tie-beams with pendant posts and solid-spandrel arch braces.

Fittings

At the east end of the south wall of the chancel stands a pillar piscina with a shelly black marble shaft, square bowl, rectangular base, and triangular head. The heptagonal pulpit has traceried panels, offsets to the corners, and moulded base and cornice. The cylindrical font has a deeply-chamfered bowl, short shaft, and ashlared base. A 17th-century altar table with turned legs and shaped aprons survives. 18th-century altar rails with some moulded and some barley-sugar balusters have been re-used at the back of the nave.

F.C. Eden introduced extensive fittings in a late 17th-century style, including a black-and-white marble floor to the sanctuary, nave pews with integral rear foot-ledges and inlaid scrolled supports, eight turned and enriched stalls to the chancel, and raised and moulded marquetry panelling with festoons and cherubs' heads, incorporating inlaid double sedilia to the sanctuary. The canopied reredos was painted in 1909 by J. Ripley Wilmer. Canopied altars appear in the north chancel chapel and south aisle. Panelling in a 17th-century style with strapwork frieze dated 1924 runs round the outer walls of the chapel and aisles. The north chapel screen of 1917 has an open-topped segmental pediment. An inlaid organ loft and enriched organ case, paintings, and gilded candlesticks complete Eden's scheme. A faldstool dates from 1767. The south aisle contains a 15th-century alabaster triptych. A hewn wooden chest is said to be 13th century. A set of eight 17th or 18th-century text boards hangs in the nave, along with a pair of early 19th-century Benefactors' boards.

Decoration

Medieval wall-painting survives on the north-east pier of the nave, showing a geometrical design in red on a cream ground. The same pier bears a 17th or 18th-century painted text with gold oak-leaf surround. The east window of the north chancel chapel contains two 16th-century Netherlandish stained-glass roundels and some 15th-century heraldic glass.

Monuments

Against the east pier of the north nave arcade is a fragment of a medieval stone canopy, possibly fan-vaulted, with green and red-painted pinnacles. The rest of the monument has been replaced by a small 18th-century-style fluted, reeded and enriched stone altar with a shelly marble slab.