Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a church with a 12th-century chancel, a nave rebuilt in 1846 by B. Ferrey, and an aisle added in 1869 by Sir T. G. Jackson. The chancel is constructed from puddingstone and flint rubble with sandstone dressings, while the rest of the church uses flint rubble with ashlar dressings, all beneath plain tiled roofs topped with gable crosses. The church comprises a nave with a north aisle, a south porch, a chancel to the east, and a gabled bellcote on the west end.

The nave features lancet windows set on a cill course with roll-mouldings, topped by a hood string course, and incorporating nook shafts. These windows alternate with offset buttresses. The chancel retains 12th and 13th-century lancet windows to the north and south sides, with clasping buttresses to the east end. An east-facing window has a pointed arch beneath a quatrefoil roundel. The north aisle has a roundel window to its east end, alongside larger three-light windows to its north wall. A five-light west window features two open lancets and three blocked ones, supported by jamb shafts and mouldings. A narrow, deeply-recessed door is flanked by jamb shafts and topped with a hood mould. The gabled south porch has an arched, studded door with two orders of jamb shafts and a four-roll moulding to the arch.

The interior includes a four-bay arcade to the north aisle with alternate round and octagonal piers. Hood mouldings adorn the arches, and there are braced kingpost roofs to both the north aisle and nave. A narrow archway leads to the Norman chancel, originally featuring a rib-vaulted roof which has since been renewed. The chancel walls are adorned with intricate scalloped capitals to round columns in the angles, and triple attached columns in the centre of the north and south walls, originally intended to support the main ribs of the vault. An enriched string course displays a diamond pattern and stiff leaf-like ornament. The floor is laid with black and white stone. Blocked square openings are present in the west, north, and south walls. Fittings include an arched piscina in the chancel's east wall, a 19th-century circular stone font with four lobes on a round pier and a central octagonal stem, a late 19th-century organ, and 19th-century pews. Stained glass is found in the north east window (1901, by A. J. Dix) and in a further window by Paul Woodroofe. Wall monuments on the south wall commemorate Duncomb Stuart, Nathaniel, and Anne Stuart (1729), crafted in veined grey marble with darker stone arch, and John and Francis Chatfield (1765), made from grey slate with a white stone inscription and topped with a draped urn on a fluted apron.