Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church built 1853–1855 in a late 13th-century style, designed by Butterfield for Dr. Pusey's brother. The building is constructed of roughly coursed stone with ashlar window dressings and has a plain tile roof.

The plan comprises a west tower, nave, south porch, chancel with lean-to vestry to the east half and projecting organ bay and choir vestry to the west half of the north side, a lean-to to the west of the organ bay and choir vestry, a north aisle to the nave, and a lean-to boiler-room to the north of the tower.

The west tower stands in two stages on a low chamfered plinth with a moulded string to the top of each stage. A broach spire rises above, with stone lucarnes to the north, south, east and west. The belfry has large two-centred-arched windows to each face, each containing two trefoil-headed louvred lights with quatrefoils. Small single trefoil-headed lights appear towards the top of the lower stage, two to the west and one each to the north and south. A tall, narrow two-light Geometrical-style west window with low sill and pointed head lights the tower below. Low north-west and south-west angle buttresses have beaded offsets. A south-east stair turret takes the form of a large pilaster buttress.

The south porch has a very high plinth with open timber-work to the south featuring arcaded queen-struts and a two-centred-arched door-head with solid spandrels. Wavy bargeboards finish the roof, and there is no outer door. The inner stone doorway is in 13th-century style with a decorative tiled floor.

The nave's south elevation has no plinth, with two two-stage buttresses alternating with two slender two-light pointed-arched windows with low sills.

The chancel has no plinth to its west half but a very high chamfered plinth to the east half, which returns around the east end on its own low chamfered plinth. Two south windows in Geometrical style—one of three lights to the west, one of two lights small to the east—are set immediately above the plinth with hoodmoulds and label-stops. The east window above the plinth has three stepped trefoil-headed lights with quatrefoils and a cinquefoil, with hoodmould and label-stops.

The lean-to vestry has no plinth, set back about one foot from the east end, with a two-light east window without overall architrave. The gabled choir vestry also has no plinth and a two-light north window without architrave; a two-centred-arched east doorway has hood-mould and label-stops, with a boarded door to the west lean-to.

The north aisle has a lean-to roof with three north windows: the two outer windows match the choir vestry window, while the central window is similar but of three lights. A narrow rectangular stack to the north-west corner, relating to the boiler-room, has four pilasters surmounted by crosses. The boiler-room features a quatrefoil window to the west formed from four blocks of stone and a boarded north door.

Interior Structure: A three-bay north arcade to the nave comprises chamfered pointed arches springing from chamfered rectangular piers with moulded imposts and two circular columns with bell capitals and bases. A pointed chancel arch of two orders springs from attached bell capitals with tapering gadrooned corbels. A tall, narrow pointed tower arch of three thick chamfered orders frames the west window, its inner order springing from attached bell capitals on plain tapered corbels, the two outer from the wall. A broad doorway to the belfry rises above the tower arch immediately below the nave rafters. Shouldered doorways lead to the tower stairs and between the organ bay and lean-to vestry. Three broad, shallow steps separate the chancel arch from the centre of the chancel.

The nave roof has scissor-braced common rafters with long ashlar-pieces and a ridge-piece. The chancel roof is of the same construction but divided in half by an extended trefoil-headed arch or canopy; both halves are painted with finely stencilled patterns, the east half being boarded and more elaborately decorated.

Fittings include a 15th-century octagonal font with concave-sided bowl bearing Tudor roses and shields in the north-west corner of the nave, with a 19th-century crocketed font cover. Remaining fittings are of the Butterfield period. Two pointed-arched pink marble sedile-type recesses with trefoiled heads and jambs extending to the floor occupy the south wall of the east half of the chancel, with an adjacent piscina. A marble-topped wooden altar stands on a plinth, with decorative iron altar rails and a wooden handrail. A pentagonal wooden pulpit on a stone base occupies the north-east corner of the nave, alongside a complete set of pews and stalls designed by Butterfield.

Decoration includes a single line of text printed in black and white beneath the nave cornice. A scroll-moulded string runs around the chancel, higher in the east half than the west. The east half of the chancel is decorated below the string with pink marble and red, orange and black tiles. Floor tiles throughout the church are plain coloured in the nave except around the font, with slightly differently arranged tiles in the west half of the chancel and decorative tiles around the font and to the east half. The altar plinth incorporates tiles finely patterned with intertwined roundels, small leaves and stars in deep colours.

The complete west window is in 13th-century style by Hardman to Butterfield's design. Trefoils and quatrefoils finish the heads of all but the east and south-east chancel windows and the north choir vestry window, designed with what has been described as "dry-eyed clarity and force" and remaining intact.