Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Riverhead

Church built in 1831 by Decimus Burton in Early English style, with extensions by Sir Arthur William Blomfield in 1882.

The building is constructed of galleted stone rubble with ashlar buttresses and a slate roof largely concealed by parapets. The plan comprises a west tower, wide nave, chancel with a transeptal north-east chapel and south-east vestry, and south-east porch.

The west tower is in three stages with diagonal buttresses, an embattled parapet, large pinnacles and a tall copper-covered spire. It features a moulded 13th-century style west doorway, a clock face in a stone recess, and large lancet windows to the belfry. The nave has large lancet windows, buttresses with set-offs and a plain parapet above a moulded cornice. The west walls of the nave also feature large lancet windows and a plain parapet. The eastern part of the church, designed by Blomfield, is remarkably sympathetic to Burton's nave in both materials and form, with pilaster buttresses, plain parapets and windows in the Early English style.

The interior contains a very wide nave with a shallow plaster rib vault. At the west end is a triple arch leading to a gallery, decorated with shafts with leafy capitals and a continuous hoodmould. The gallery frontal is blind traceried with a central section projecting on miniature vaults. The Blomfield eastern end displays High Victorian architecture internally, although the decoration dates surprisingly late. Full-height traceried openings open to the north and south sides of the chancel, which has an encaustic tiled floor. The eastern triple lancet is decorated with carved spandrels and marble shafts extending down to divide the cusped stone panels of the reredos. The panels are enriched with scenes in mosaic; the central panel dates from 1894 by Salviati, while the remaining sanctuary decoration dates from 1910 to 1917 by Powell's. A late 19th-century timber drum pulpit with blind traceried panels and a pierced parapet stands in the nave. The font features a circular bowl with large-scale stiff-leaf carving and blind ogee arches on a stem with corner shafts. The nave benches and choir stalls date from the 19th century, with the benches being square-headed with recessed panels and the stalls bearing poppyhead finials. The east window, dating from 1905, is by Kempe.

The church was originally built as a Chapel-of-Ease to St Nicholas Church, Sevenoaks but became an ecclesiastical parish in its own right by 1864. It is prominently sited high above a square at the junction of busy roads, approached by a long flight of steps leading to the west tower.