Church Of St Martin Of Tours

The Church of St Martin of Tours is a parish church dating from around 1100, with significant additions and alterations in the 13th and 15th centuries, and a restoration in the late 19th century. It comprises a west tower, nave, south porch, chancel, north chapel, and north aisle.

The west tower is in two stages, built of galleted ragstone on a plinth with diagonal buttresses. It has a shingled broach spire dated 1861, the work of R.C. Hussey. The bell-chamber windows are single-light and restored. A tall, 3-light window, with a hood-mould, sits above a small arched Perpendicular west door. The nave is early Norman in style, constructed of flint with tufa quoins and a plain tile roof. A 2-light Perpendicular window is located to the right of the porch. The Perpendicular style south porch is built of ragstone with a plain tile roof, featuring a moulded outer doorway and a 2-centred arched door with a cusped niche above. The early Norman chancel is flint with tufa quoins to the south-west corner, a plain tile roof, and a 3-light Perpendicular south and east window. The roof partly overlaps that of the nave. The Perpendicular north chapel is of ragstone, on a plinth, with a plain tile roof and diagonal buttresses; it has its own independent roof and a restored 2-light Perpendicular north window. The Early English north aisle was enlarged in 1887 and is of flint, with much of the west wall in ragstone, and a plain tile roof. The aisle is at a higher level than the chapel, and contains a 2-centred arched doorhead in the west wall.

Inside, a 2-bay Early English arcade separates the aisle from the nave, with wide, plain arches springing from moulded imposts. A single-bay Perpendicular arcade connects the chapel to the chancel. The chapel retains its original roof of common rafters with sous-laces and ashlar pieces, while the rest of the roof is 19th century, forming a smooth semi-circular barrel vault in the aisle. Traces of an early window are visible in the south wall of the nave. The church contains an early, plain 12-sided stone font with a 20th-century base. A mid-14th century wooden lectern, likely originally made for Boxley Abbey, is decorated with four faces of a carved head, pierced roundels, quatrefoils, mouchettes and trefoils, along with small animals, vines, and an angel. There is a tenon for a statuette above, and a panelled, octagonal stem with a large, intricately carved buttressed foot, making it one of the finest and oldest remaining in England. A partial monumental stone tomb slab with a carved figure of a priest is on the south wall of the north aisle, and a monument to Mary Foote, who died in 1778, is on the south wall of the chancel, in a delicately carved Strawberry Hill Gothic style featuring a low, panelled tomb chest under a triple ogee canopy.