Church Of St Mary The Virgin

SU 94 NE SHALFORD CP THE STREET

3/157 Church of St. Mary the Virgin

GV II

Church. 1846 rebuild of 1790 church. By Benjamin Ferrey Rough coursed sandstone with ashlar dressings and plain tiled roofs. Cruciform plan with lower chancel to east, porch to south, and tower to north west with vestry attached to north. Very tall proportions. Three stage tower with copper broach spire on corbelled eaves. Offset quoined buttress to lower stages, blind lancet arcade to first stage above with round moulded capitals to jamb shafts. Two bays of the arcade are open with louvred coverings. Three bay arcade below on tower with central 2-light lancet window. Stair turret to south east corner in angle with main church, vestry to north side. Lancet clerestorey windows over pentice roofed aisles. Remaining fenestration, lancet and roundels in early English style. Buttressed aisles with corbelled eaves and buttressed east end with hood mouldings to windows. Gabled porch to south with trefoil opening in gable apex. Moulded and chamfered entrance arch with one order of jamb shafts. Panelled outer doors, C20 inner doors. Further doors to west end in moulded two-order surround under hood moulding with human head stops and strapwork hinges to doors.

Interior: braced, hammer beam type nave roof with four bay round pier nave arcades below. Octagonal piers to east of entrance to aisle chapels. Chamfered arches and hood mouldings over. Wooden gallery to west end on thin, painted iron columns. King-post chancel roof, panelled chancel under billeted band.

Fittings: ogee arch piscina on south wall of chancel. Panelled pulpit on centre stem, ribbed with linenfold pattern to panels. Octagonal stone font on panelled stem with deep carving in panels of bowl.

Monument: tablet recording donations to church construction and detailing architects and patrons dated 1847 (on west wall of north aisle).

North aisle wall: monument to George Duncombe 1694/5. Marble cartouche with crowning coat of arms and winged cherubs with draperies.

Memorial to George Sturt. Died 1769. Rectangular, white stone apron with bead and paterae decoration. Grey stone obelisk above with urn and coat of arms.

North Wall of chancel: to Robert Austen. Died 1798. Neo-classical style by Bacon. White stone with fluted pilaster strips flanking guttae below. Grey stone obelisk with shallow relief garlanded urn and winged cherub heads.

South chancel wall. Monument to Robert Austen. 1759 by James Moorhouse of Greenwich. Grey veined marble obelisk with broken pediment over and rectangular inscribed panel on volute srolls. Apron below with winged cherub heads.

Chancel stained glass windows by Newton Butler Brown. East window by W.R. Eginton and Samuel Brown. West window of south aisle by Ward and Hughes 1883.

PEVSNER: BUILDINGS OF ENGLAND, SURREY (1981) page 452.

Listing NGR: SU9991647814