Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church dating to 1823-8, designed by W. Ashenden. It incorporates earlier medieval fabric and was altered in 1866 and 1874 by G.M. Hills. The church is constructed of small blocks of coursed stone with a slate roof. It comprises a west tower, nave, south aisle, south porch, chancel with north and south chapels, and a north aisle.

The west tower has three stages on a moulded plinth with battlements. Semi-octagonal clasping buttresses define the two lower stages, with pointed arched louvred openings on each face of the belfry. A three-light west window is set above a tall, narrow, two-centred arched west doorway featuring worn moulded jambs and a hood mould. The south aisle abuts the tower. A diagonal buttress sits at the southwest corner and a pointed arch window is set on the west side. Four three-light south windows are interspersed with buttresses, with two windows on either side of the porch. The south porch is flanked by two buttresses having an aisle window-head above the opening. It is battlemented with a pointed arched doorway incorporating quatrefoiled spandrels. The inner doorway is four-centred arched. The south chapel is visually connected to the south aisle but has slightly lower eaves. It includes a diagonal buttress and a pointed arched south doorway with hoodmould, a blind quatrefoil above it, and a two-light east window. The chancel features chamfered corners and diagonal buttresses, with a hipped roof. A broad three-light east window, added in 1866 by Habershon, illuminates the east end. The north aisle stops short of the west end of the tower, with four three-light windows and a blind bay to the west end, concluding with a pointed arched window.

Internally, the 1874 arcades between the nave and north and south aisles feature octagonal columns with moulded capitals and bases, designed in a medieval style, and pointed, double-chamfered arches to the chancel arch and between the aisles and chapels. The attached columns of the chancel arch, inner columns and outer corbels of the aisle/chapel arches are medieval; the corbels are decorated with grotesque faces and gadrooned sides, and the columns octagonal with moulded capitals and bases. A complete medieval double-chamfered pointed arch, with attached columns, separates the chancel from each chapel. There is no tower arch, but a three-bay arcade of pointed arches opens onto a corbelled and quatrefoiled stone balcony with iron railings halfway up the tower. A panelled, four-centred arched door partitions the west bay of the north and south aisles from the remainder of the aisles. The nave has a scientifically raked queen-strut roof. A 15th-century octagonal font with concave sides, petalled flowers, on a shafted octagonal stem with a moulded base, is also present. An early 20th-century wooden pulpit with canted corners, fielded panels, and fluting sits against the south wall. A 1844 Benefactors’ board is found at the west end of the south aisle. Also visible is a tapering stone tomb slab with a raised cross at the west end of the south aisle.