Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

A parish church with 12th and 14th century origins, largely rebuilt by G.E. Street in 1854–55. The building is constructed of roughly coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and has concrete tile roofs with stepped coped verges. It comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, north aisle, south porch, and north-east vestry.

The tower was rebuilt by Street in two unequal stages. It has a stepped chamfered plinth and diagonal buttresses, with an embattled parapet featuring two reused medieval gargoyles on both north and south sides. A pyramidal roof is topped with a brass weathercock. A projecting staircase turret to the north-east corner is lit by narrow chamfered rectangular windows and a tiny reused trefoil-headed window at the bottom. The belfry contains reused 14th-century two-light trefoil-headed windows with quatrefoils to the apexes and hoodmoulds on all sides (the eastern example cut by a 20th-century clock face). The first stage has a 19th-century lancet to the south and a narrow lancet high up to the north, with a reused 14th-century window of three lights with reticulated tracery to the west.

The nave is buttressed in two bays with a continuous moulded cill band. The west bay has a reused 15th-century two-light square-headed window with panel tracery, label and head-stops; a similar window of four lights appears in the east bay. A repositioned late 13th-century gabled porch stands to the west of the west window, with a stepped stone slab roof, cusped outer arch and transverse rib to the centre. A reset single-stepped 12th-century round-headed south doorway features original hoodmould, nook-shafts and scalloped capitals. The north aisle includes a reused 12th-century round-headed doorway with a central Maltese cross to the tympanum flanked by a centaur to the east and a lion to the west; the hoodmould has beast head-stops with grooved imposts of scroll terminations. Three small paired 19th-century trefoil-headed lancets appear to the east, with a similar single-light window to the west.

The chancel's south side has a late 13th-century cusped lowside window totally renewed in the 19th century to the west, and 19th-century paired trefoil-headed lancets to the east. A pointed three-light Decorated-style east window has a 19th-century cross to the gable. The north wall displays a single round-headed lancet with the head replaced in the 19th century. A lean-to vestry has a two-light window in the east wall and a pointed doorway to the north.

The interior is entirely 19th-century in appearance. The north arcade comprises three pointed bays with circular piers, moulded plinths and capitals. The pointed chancel and tower arches die into responds, both by Street. An arch-braced king-post roof in three bays spans the nave with contemporary collar trusses between each truss. A lean-to north aisle roof and scissor-braced roof to the chancel are also 19th-century. Pointed doorways lead to the staircase turret in the tower and to the vestry. An image bracket with heavily restored canopy occupies the east jamb of the four-light Perpendicular window.

Fittings and furnishings include nave benches, a stone pulpit, brass lectern, and altar rails, mostly 19th-century work. A circular 12th-century font with a recut octagonal base features intersecting round-headed arcading (some decorated) to the bowl.

Late 19th-century stained glass appears in the four-light Perpendicular window and in the east window. Monuments include one 18th-century and several 19th-century wall tablets and memorials in the chancel, and two rustic wall memorials to members of the Bolter family on the north wall of the aisle. These are dated 1640 and 1694, with square moulded inscription panels and carved segmental canopies to the top.

In 1848 the antiquarian J.H. Parker described the church as almost entirely Romanesque, though this is not confirmed by a Buckler drawing of 1821, which shows it to be mostly Perpendicular in external appearance. Earthworks in the field to the west (a Scheduled Ancient Monument) are said to be associated with a former (possibly) manor house and its garden.