Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church largely dating to the early 13th century, with extensions from the 14th century and alterations in the 15th century. It was extensively restored in 1859 by the Diocesan Architect G.E. Street, who virtually rebuilt the chancel. The church is constructed of rubble with freestone dressings, featuring leaded roofs to the nave and aisles, and stone slate to the chancel.

The church comprises a three-bay clere-storied nave with north and south aisles extended as chapels, a south porch, a west tower, and a vestry to the north-east. The west tower is a prominent three-stage feature with angle buttresses that form clasping buttresses to the upper stage. It originally carried a substantial stone spire topped by crude ball-capped pinnacles, gabled lucarnes with grotesque carvings holding crosses, and a copper ball with a weathervane. The west doorway displays evolved 13th-century mouldings and ornamentation, including floral caps to nook shafts and chevron detailing, heavily undercut in places. Flanking the tower are lean-to structures believed to represent 12th-century clasping aisles, with a cusped arch doorway on the north side (appearing more archaeologically convincing) and a heavily bricked-up section on the south. The bell chamber has slate tracery, and the lucarnes have bar tracery. The north aisle has transitional Decorated-Perpendicular style tracery of the late 14th century, simpler rectilinear tracery to the clerestory and south side, and a large east window with geometrical tracery (by Street). 14th-century moulded doorways are found leading to the south porch and the south chapel. The two-story south porch has niches containing defaced sculptures of the mid-14th century: a single figure, believed to be St John, and a crocketed canopy over an Annunciation. The ground floor is vaulted.

The interior is plastered. The church contains arcades, a font, a medieval stone pulpit, and significant monuments, as detailed in Pevsner’s guide. A recessed niche in the north wall contains an earlier, oversized effigy with the head positioned on top of the body. Pews and choir stalls were designed by Street. A west window by Morris and Company, featuring painted scenes dating from circa 1859, survives behind the organ. The tower arches are noteworthy for their unusual design, featuring chamfered orders, moulded impost strips broken around, water-holds in the bases, and a main arch to the east with lower arches to the north and south. The spire is described as a rustic version of Witney's.