Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Walton on Thames

A church of 13th-century origin with a 14th-century chancel, 17th-century additions, and 19th-century restoration. The building is constructed of flint with stone dressings, brick to the north aisle, and rendered chancel, with plain tiled roofs. The plan comprises a square west tower, nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, and an east chancel with a northeast vestry.

The tower features curious steeply sloping diagonal buttresses, a result of 19th-century restoration work. Each face of the first stage has a lancet window. The tower is crowned with a flagpole and iron weathervane. The north aisle contains 17th-century casement windows beneath flat drip mouldings, while the south aisle has 20th-century windows. The east window, dating to the 19th century, is a three-light design with cusped Decorated tracery.

The interior contains a four-bay nave arcade with Norman round piers to the north, featuring scalloped capitals and dating to around 1150. The south aisle arcade is 14th-century with octagonal piers and moulded capitals. A pointed 14th-century chancel arch separates the nave from the chancel. The nave roof is 17th-century timber construction with Queen-posts.

The south chancel wall retains its 14th-century sedilia and piscina. A 19th-century stone pulpit of polychrome marble stands octagonal in plan with angle columns. An octagonal stone font is positioned in the nave. A gallery spans the north aisle and western end of the nave; the northern section is partly Jacobean with square tapering strapwork balusters, with the remainder copied in 1925. An organ case dating to around 1680 by Bernard Smith, originally made for Charles II's private chapel at Windsor, was restored in 1936 and remains in the church.

The church contains an exceptional series of monuments. In the north aisle stands the monument to Richard Boyle, Viscount Shannon, erected in 1755 by F.L. Roubiliac. Constructed of grey and white marble and approximately 25 feet high, it features a large pedestal with a seated figure of the Viscount's daughter, her arm draped around an urn. Behind stands a carved tent pavilion with flanking angle scrolls. The standing life-size figure of the Viscount leans on a gun mounted on a smaller plinth, with a cannon and carriage to the left and military standards and drum to the right.

A brass to John Selwyn, died 1587, is mounted on a stone tablet in the north aisle wall. It depicts male and female standing figures to either side with 11 children between them. Above is a square plaque showing a man riding a stag, commemorating Selwyn's exploit of killing a stag at Queen Elizabeth's feet.

The Rodney Memorial of 1774, positioned above the south door, is an Adam-style wall plaque of stone with a black stone band around the central inscription. It is decorated with a lotus frieze across the top and thin pilasters to the sides, with an oval urn to the centre, garland decoration, and an apron containing a cartouche.

A monument to Henry Fletcher, died 1807, occupies the spandrel of the arch to the east on the north arcade; it is an aedicular pedimented plaque on cill blocks. Matthew Kirby, died 1721 and erected 1730, is commemorated by a grey and white stone monument on the north chancel wall with projecting fluted Ionic pilasters, flanking scrolls, and two putti above with a cartouche shield on a gadrooned pedestal, flanked by cill volutes and an apron below with a winged cherub's head.

Henry Skrine, died 1824, is remembered by a monument by Joseph Gott comprising a white stone stele with a seated woman and standing figure of Faith to the left. The monument to Mr. and Mrs. Christopher D'Oyley, 1821, by F. Chantry features a grey ground with a Greek stele containing a mourning draped female over the monument of her husband. A brown marble wall monument of 1619 features brown inscription panel, flanking scrolls, a broken pediment above, and a central lantern finial. The Watkins memorial, for one who died 1706, is a white stone draped cartouche with cherubim.

An inscription of verse attributed to Queen Elizabeth is inscribed on the east pier of the north nave arcade.