Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Sundridge

This is a medieval parish church of Grade I listed importance, standing on Church Road in Sundridge. It began as a two-cell structure in the 12th century, but was greatly enlarged and extended in the 13th century when the north and south aisles and chapels were added and the chancel extended. The tower may also date from the 13th century. The church was substantially remodelled again in the 15th century, when the aisles and chapels were heightened, the tower was remodelled, and the chancel arch was rebuilt. The chancel was remodelled around 1808 by J Carter for Lord Fredrick Campbell of Coombe Bank, though little of this work remains visible. The church was restored by George Gilbert Street in 1848–49. A fire in 1882 badly damaged the chancel, and repairs were carried out to designs by T E C Streatfield. Further repair and restoration followed in the 20th century, designed by W D Caroë.

The church is built of sandstone rubble with tiled roofs and a shingled spire. The chancel is rendered.

The plan consists of a nave with very narrow north and south aisles, a south porch, a south rood stair, a west tower, and a chancel with north and south chapels and a north vestry.

Exterior

The aisles and chapels have pitched roofs creating an attractive massing of gables of differing heights when seen from the east. The west tower, possibly 13th-century in origin and originally unbuttressed, was remodelled in the later middle ages when buttresses, a stair turret, a west door and west window were added. It is topped by a shingled spire. Both the aisles and the chancel chapels were heightened in the 15th century and have 3-light Perpendicular windows with pointed heads. The chancel east window is similar, but there are 13th-century lancets in the chancel north and south walls. The south chapel has a 19th-century south door, and the lower part of its east window is partially blocked. The south porch has a hipped roof and a chimney. There are 15th-century offset buttresses on the north aisle and diagonal buttresses on the chancel. The 17th-century north-east vestry has a 2-light window in a square frame.

Interior

Although the church is quite small, the interior is exceptionally lofty because the very narrow aisles were heightened without being widened, making them very tall for their width.

The 3-bay north and south nave arcades are early 13th-century and have chamfered arches on cylindrical piers with moulded capitals. A former clerestory of quatrefoil windows is visible above the arcades, but the aisle walls were raised in the 15th century, so that the clerestory is now internal. The 15th-century aisle and chapel windows have dropped sills forming window seats. The aisle roofs are pitched with 15th-century roofs featuring very short crown posts with rafters plastered in. The late medieval nave roof has taller crown posts on moulded beams and wall plates. The chancel roof is 19th-century, rebuilt after the fire of 1882.

The tower arch is the same height as the arcades and of two chambered orders. It sits behind the line of the former nave wall, which is visible as an internal buttress. The tops of the 12th-century walls are also visible as an offset all the way around the nave. The tower arch is now closed by a glazed late 20th-century screen. Inside the tower, the substantial framing of the ringing chamber floor is visible, and the spire retains its original framing.

The chancel arch is chamfered and sits on polygonal responds with polygonal moulded capitals. The arches from the aisles to the chapels are 15th-century with chamfered arches dying into the wall high up. The 2-bay, 13th-century chancel chapel arcades are very similar but not identical to the nave arcades. Remains of nook shafts supporting roll mouldings for the rerearches of former 13th-century windows are visible on either side of the present east window. The original arrangement was probably five stepped lancets filling the whole east wall. The adjacent 13th-century lancets have a continuous roll moulding on their reveals. A corbel for a former rood beam is visible to the left of the chancel arch, and blocked upper and lower doors for the rood loft stairs survive in the south-east chapel. A further blocked opening above the rood loft doors is probably a blocked window lighting the rood.

Principal Fixtures

In the chancel is a double piscina with a central shaft, 13th-century, very pink from the fire of 1882. An octagonal 15th-century font stands in the nave. The chancel reredos dates from 1877 and features the Good Shepherd and other scenes carved in Caen stone; it was painted and gilded in 1936. The timber chancel altar is 20th-century. A late 19th-century polygonal timber pulpit with tracery panelling stands on a stone stem. Good late 19th-century choir stalls with poppyhead ends and tracery panelling are present. Late 19th-century screens in Perpendicular style separate the aisles and chapels; the south screen incorporates fragments of the medieval screen. In the south chapel, early 20th-century panelling and a screen to the chancel display Arts and Crafts Gothic style.

A 17th-century royal arms of Charles I or Charles II hangs in the church. A very fine brass chandelier dating from around 1726 is the gift of Revd. Edward Tenison, Rector from 1698–1727. Several early 19th-century hatchments are displayed.

Stained glass of the late 19th and 20th centuries includes notably in the south aisle an Annunciation by Kemp from 1899. The chancel lancets contain glass from 1878 by Holiday.

The church contains very good monuments, including brasses to Roger Isley, died 1429, depicted as a man in armour. A brass of a civilian from around 1460 and another of Thomas Isley, died 1518, and his wife with their ten sons and three daughters survive. Parts of a 15th-century tomb chest including an angel with a shield have been reset in the chancel north wall. In the north chapel, an early 16th-century tomb chest with a Tudor-arched canopy, said to be for John Isley, is used as an altar and reredos.

Later monuments include John Hyde, died 1677, represented by a black and white marble tablet with a segmental pediment on Ionic columns, and John Hyde, died 1729, shown by a marble wall tablet with a scrolled open pediment on fluted columns. Busts as Roman matrons of Elizabeth, Duchess of Argyll and Lady Caroline Conway were created by Anne Damer, the well-known sculptor and protégé of Horace Walpole, in 1808.

Subsidiary Features

A very fine and very complete lychgate, probably 15th or early 16th-century, has timber on renewed dwarf brick walls with a tiled roof. Similar in design to that at West Wickham, it retains its original posts, main beam, braces and at least some of its rafters and other timber. The churchyard is good with many interesting monuments, including a chest tomb topped by an urn for Beilby Porteous (1731–1809), successively Bishop of Chester and London and a leading abolitionist. A very good war memorial with a polygonal base topped by a tall cross stands in the churchyard.

History

Sundridge church was mentioned in Domesday Book, when it was held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the double-square plan of the nave suggests that the church was rebuilt (probably replacing an earlier timber church) in the 12th century. The reasons for the very substantial 13th-century rebuilding are unclear, but may be connected with the church's position on the pilgrimage route to Canterbury. The brasses to the Isley family, who held a local manor in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, suggest a link with the late medieval remodelling of the church.