Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin is a building with a long history, primarily dating to the 15th century, though with a 13th-century north chapel. The church was restored in 1866. The construction incorporates sarsens in the tower, ironstone and flint rubble for the west wall of the north aisle and north chapel, all with stone dressings. The roof is tiled.

The church comprises an aisled nave with a square, battlemented tower to the west, a chancel with a north chapel to the east, and a flat-roofed extension to the south. The tower is in the Perpendicular style, topped by a square, wooden cupola from the 18th century beneath a lead hip roof, and a weathervane. Diagonal buttresses define the west end, and a square stair turret is located on the northeast angle, featuring a hipped, pyramidal roof. Belfry windows are diagonally set and stone-dressed, with a five-light west window below. Buttressed aisles have 15th-century trefoil-headed clerestory windows, one and two lights each, three on each side, along with 17th-century two-light windows below, all under label mouldings. Renewed 19th-century windows are found at the east end of the chapel, and a curvilinear three-light east window features ogee arched tracery. A gabled, half-timbered porch to the south has moulded bargeboards, rendered gable infill, and a date of 1591. It contains a "Tudor" arched entrance, with brick dado walls and open arcades above, supported by "shouldered" arches and moulded mullions. A "Tudor" arched south door is set in a stone surround, and the west doors have roses carved into the spandrels of the arch.

The interior features a tiled floor and whitewashed walls. The late 13th-century nave arcades consist of three bays with round piers and double, hollow-chamfered arches. Crimped plaster decoration enhances the nave arcade arches, aisle window recesses, and the south door area. A tall tower arch leads to the west, and an inscribed face on the inner tower reads "Richard Exfold made XIV fote of Yis Tower". A 19th-century chancel arch marks the east side.

Notable fittings include a triple-arched sedilia on the south side of the chancel, a piscina on the south wall of the aisle, and a 17th-century pulpit transferred from Eton College. The pulpit is cut down, panelled oak with foliage edging. The font is late 17th century, also from Eton College, and is of marble with an octagonal bowl, gadrooned decoration, a foliage surround, and an octagonal baluster stem with shell decoration to the plinth. Stained glass in the east window of the north aisle consists of two 14th-century figures under ogee canopies. A later east window was created by Clayton & Bell in 1887. Two empty ogee headed 14th-century canopies are located in the north chapel.