Church Of St Philip

The Church of St Philip is a building of group value, dating from the early 13th century, with alterations in the 15th and 16th centuries. The tower was built or rebuilt in 1617 for William Blower. It is constructed of limestone ashlar, coursed squared marlstone with limestone-ashlar dressings, and some render, with concrete plain-tile roofs. The church consists of a chancel, nave, west tower, and a south porch.

The chancel, probably from the early 13th century, has shallow buttresses and fine 3-light windows to the south with 4-centre-arched heads, Perpendicular drop tracery, and scrolled hood stops. A further 3-light window to the east has lozenge stops and is set within a casement moulding. The ashlar south wall of the nave has a wide, square-headed 5-light window with arched lights, hollow-chamfered mullions, and recessed spandrels. The label mould has lozenge stops. The south doorway and the entrance to the small porch have shallow chamfered Tudor arches. The marlstone tower, with stepped diagonal buttresses and a crenellated parapet with small corner pinnacles, has a west window of 2 arched, hollow-chamfered lights below a label and similar bell-chamber openings. A wall tablet framed by Ionic columns displays a shield of arms, the date 1617, and the inscription "WILLIAM BLO(?)/ESQVIER LORD OF/THIS MANOR BV/(?) THIS TOWER".

Inside, both splays of the east window have moulded image brackets on tall pedestals and elaborate crocketed canopies. The early 13th-century chancel arch is of two chamfered orders with impost-capitals returning as strings. The wide, chamfered tower arch may be earlier than 1617. The simple roofs are from the 18th or early 19th century. Traces of wall paintings exist above the tower arch. Fittings include late 17th-century barleytwist communion rails, a small font on a tall panelled stem (probably 17th century), and a 19th-century stone pulpit. Two large, canopied monuments in the chancel commemorate members of the Dixon family. The earlier monument (probably early 17th century) is in painted stone, with Ionic columns, obelisks, an achievement of arms and strapwork enclosing a vase of flowers, and an hour glass on a skull, featuring a full-length recumbent effigy in armour. The monument to Edward Dixon and his two wives (circa 1650) is in alabaster and black marble, and depicts the three figures kneeling around a prayer desk within a recess flanked by black Corinthian columns. The front panel is incised with the kneeling figures of ten children.