Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Chalk

The Church of St Mary originated in the late 11th century, when the chancel was probably rebuilt, though a church stood on this site in the pre-Conquest period. The building is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings.

The chancel remains the oldest part, containing herringbone masonry that indicates early Norman work. In the late 12th century, the church was substantially enlarged with the addition of aisles to both the north side of the nave and chancel. A south nave aisle was added in the mid-13th century. The present west tower and west porch date from the 15th century. The south aisle was demolished in the late 18th century, though evidence of its three-bay arcade remains visible in the south wall of the nave, where two Perpendicular windows and a Decorated window appear to have been reset from the aisle wall. The church underwent major restoration in the 19th century and again in the mid-20th century.

The west tower forms an important landmark. It rises in three unbuttressed stages and features a prominent southwest stair turret. Both the tower and turret have embattled parapets. The tower displays foiled lights of 15th-century character. The late 15th-century west porch has a continuously moulded outer opening and is notable for its sculptural decoration: an ogee-headed statue niche set within a square frame, with Tudor roses carved in the spandrels. Below the niche stands a carved figure of a man with a flagon, and grotesques appear in the string course above.

The chancel contains 13th-century lancets in the south and east walls, though those in the south wall are 19th-century replacements of Perpendicular windows that existed in the early 19th century. A low-side window, probably 13th-century in origin, also survives in the chancel south wall. The north aisle windows are of approximately 1300 and feature two trefoiled lights and a foiled circle in the tracery, with 19th-century dormer-like gables above each window. Two lead plates from an earlier tower roof, one dated 1702, are mounted on the north aisle wall.

Inside, the three-bay north arcade of the late 12th century displays long responds and sections of walling as piers, with chamfered pointed arches on chamfered imposts and nook shafts at the corners of the piers. The two-bay north chancel chapel arcade is similar in character, as is the arch between aisle and chapel. A further blocked arch of this type at the west end of the north aisle may indicate a former northwest tower. The mid-13th-century lancets, mostly renewed, in the chancel east wall retain a continuous hood mould. There is no chancel arch; instead, the inner angles of the chancel, which is narrower than the nave, are chamfered up to the top of the wall. Nineteenth-century detached shafts support the arched west truss of the chancel roof and provide some division between nave and chancel. The blocked 13th-century three-bay south nave arcade remains embedded in the south wall; it had arches of two chamfered orders on round piers with moulded capitals and bases. Two 14th-century cusped ogee tomb recesses appear in the north aisle wall.

The chancel contains a very good 13th-century trefoiled piscina and single set of sedilia. The piscina is distinguished by a head corbel beneath the bowl and head and foliate stops on the continuous hood mould above the openings. The font is plain and round, possibly of 12th-century date. The 19th-century furnishings include simple benches, choir stalls and a pulpit, with the stalls and pulpit featuring open trefoil arched panelling. A gallery was inserted at the west end, partly under the tower, in 1992 to accommodate an enlarged congregation.