Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a Grade II* listed building located in Lyford, dating back to the early 13th century, with a clerestory added in the early 16th century. It was restored in 1875 by Ewan Christian. The church is constructed of uncoursed limestone rubble, featuring a gabled nave roof made of sheet lead and a chancel roof covered with old and 20th-century tiles.

The structure includes a nave and chancel. The east lancet window was added in 1875, while the chancel side walls have two bays with 13th-century pointed lancets, a 16th-century light to the south, and a 13th-century trefoil-headed light to the north. The south wall of the nave has a central blocked doorway from the 13th century, flanked by pointed lancets, and features two early 16th-century round-arched clerestory windows. The north wall contains a 13th-century lancet to the east and a pointed chamfered doorway leading to a 19th-century door. There is a mid-19th-century timber porch with a reset 15th-century oak archway at the front, along with similar clerestory windows. A circled cross is present on the east side of the west gable, and there is a geometrical west window from 1875. The west belfry has mid-19th-century weatherboarding and a pyramidal Welsh slate roof.

Inside, the chancel features a 13th-century piscina with a foliate-carved credence shelf, a 13th-century aumbry, and a mid-19th-century tiled floor with benches. The chancel arch dates from 1875. A Jacobean pulpit is adorned with stylised tulips set within blind arches, and there is a 15th-century octagonal font on a shelf. The north side has seven benches from the 17th and 18th centuries, while the south side has similar benches from the 19th century. The roof is a four-bay tie-beam structure with arch-braced posts supported on corbels. Heavy 15th-century oak posts, reinforced by ogee scissor braces, support the belfry, which likely dates from the early 16th century when the clerestory was added. Additionally, there are early 16th-century four-bay Perpendicular screens, originally a rood screen, that have been moved to flank the belfry posts at the west end.