Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Church dating from the late 12th century through to the 15th century, with 19th-century restoration. Built of limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, with plain tile and lead roofs. The building comprises a chancel, aisled nave, south porch, and west tower.

The chancel is tiled and dates from the 15th century. It has a plinth and stepped diagonal buttresses. The east window is a 3-light window in Perpendicular style, largely dating from 1851, with 2-light side windows featuring 4-centred arches. The western window on the south side is probably 16th century, being larger and uncusped.

The south aisle has a 4-centred arched 3-light east window with Perpendicular drop tracery. To the south are two large square-headed 3-light traceried windows. The parapet displays a 17th-century inscription and a sundial. The south porch is tiled and dates from the 15th century, with a Tudor-arched entrance and a group of three trefoil windows inserted in the 19th century. It shelters the original 15th-century south doorway.

The north aisle contains a 3-centred arched 3-light east window with Perpendicular drop tracery. To the north is a large 3-light square-headed traceried window and a small moulded 4-centred-arched doorway (now blocked). To the west is a square-headed 2-light window of 15th or 16th-century date. The east gable of the nave has a blocked 13th-century trefoil-headed opening and the remains of a second opening, probably later. The clerestory windows to north and south date from the 15th or 16th century and have two cusped lights.

The tower dates from the late 12th century and has a plain parapet rising from a moulded string. It has a lancet to the west and bell-chamber openings consisting of two pointed arches within a semi-circular rubble outer arch. Massive flying buttresses were added in 1891 by R. Blomfield.

The interior of the chancel features a 2-seat sedilia with cusped Tudor arches decorated with flowers and foliage in the spandrels and cresting. A similar piscina arch has a label mould with foliage stops, though the bowl has been restored. The roof dates from the restoration of around 1850. The chancel arch and 4-bay north arcade are late 14th century, with octagonal piers and moulded capitals. The south arcade has three early 13th-century circular columns with moulded capitals, one bearing fleurs-de-lys and grotesques on a band of nailhead ornament. The arcade was rebuilt with 14th-century octagonal responds and arches of two hollow-chamfered orders. The tower arch has three chamfered orders dying into the walls. A small 15th-century piscina and a mutilated cusped stoup are located in the south aisle.

The nave and aisle roofs feature stop-chamfered joists and purlins with moulded cambered tie beams. In the nave, arched braces from moulded posts appear to date from the 15th century but are dated to the late 16th century by Sharpe. The font is a plain octagonal design on a stem. A medieval stone mensa is located in the south aisle. Royal arms of 1617 hang over the south door.

Notable furnishings include an oak lectern of 1917 with a tapering crenellated stem surrounded by canopied angels, and an oak screen of 1910 by J. O. Scott, both in Arts and Crafts style. The screen features pierced friezes of flowers, a cresting of roses, and pierced panels carved with birds and musical motifs. Other fittings date from the 19th century. The chancel and south aisle contain 19th-century glass. A classical wall tablet in the south aisle commemorates Shelomith Deeley, who died in 1736. The porch has a 15th-century roof with curved windbraces and contains fragments of medieval stained glass in its small windows.