Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

A church of considerable architectural importance, with origins in the 12th century. The 12th-century tower and west wall of the nave survive, together with a north aisle of around 1210 which was widened in 1869. The south aisle and chapel date from the 16th century. The building is constructed of rendered rubble stone with chalk and Bath stone angle quoins; the tower is of flint rubble with a wood-shingled broach spire and plain tile roof.

The church comprises a nave and chancel with a porch to the north, a tower and further porch to the west, and a vestry to the south-east. The tower has three stages with the first and second stages slightly offset. The spire is four-sided on the tower and octagonal in its upper parts. Lancet windows light the top stage of the tower. Diagonal buttresses support the east end and north aisle. The chancel's north side features three lancet windows with a further curvilinear window under hood moulding, alongside a 19th-century north aisle window. The east window comprises triple 13th-century lancets with attached shafts. A 15th-century arched window on the south side sits beneath a moulded hood with coved surround and deep rectilinear ogee arch tracery. The west porch is timber-framed on low flint walls with cusped bargeboards and an arched door. A second gabled porch to the north features arched studded doors on the inner side and open pierced doors externally.

The interior contains four-bay nave arcades. The north arcade has moulded circular piers with capitals and abaci, and arches with unmoulded soffits, roll mouldings to edges, and hood mould over. The south arcade has octagonal piers with half-octagonal responses. The nave and aisles have collar beam roofs whilst the chancel has a panelled roof. A simple chamfered arch of the 13th century with chamfer bases and abaci spans the opening. An organ loft occupies the south side behind two lancets. A plain roll string course runs along the east half of the chancel below the windows.

The fittings are largely of 19th-century date. However, a 16th-century rood screen of 12 tracery bays survives, with four bays over the centre openings retaining double doors and a moulded cornice. The east wall of the nave dates from the 14th or 15th century and features an alabaster Nativity, English work. Simple altar rails with turned balusters stand before a 19th-century reredos across the east end. The font is 13th-century with a retooled bowl of tapering sides on a modern stem surrounded by a central pillar with four small columns. A 19th-century panelled oak pulpit and a 14th-century oak chest are also present. Wall paintings include a faded 13th-century St Christopher on the west wall to the north of the west door, a Passion cycle to the south, and faint traces on the south wall. A 17th-century brass chandelier hangs in the chancel. 13th-century glass medallions are set in the north and central lancets of the east end.

The monuments are of particular significance. On the south wall stands a monument to James Kendall (died 1750) by Nicholas Read, a pupil of Roubiliac, in grey and white marble, with a stele ground supporting an asymmetrically-draped urn, and an apron below with a rose tree. The south wall of the south chapel contains a wall monument to Sir John and Lady Penelope Nicholas (died 1704) in light and dark marble, featuring a central arch motif with a purple stone urn under a gadrooned lid and gilt frame finial, panelled pilasters supporting floral finials, a winged cherub's head crowning the arch, and an apron with flower and cherub carving over a large gadrooned plinth. Flanking life-size putti lean on the gadrooning before dark grey obelisks. The east wall of the south chapel displays a massive wall monument to Sir Edward Nicholas (died 1699), attributed to Grinling Gibbons, in white marble of aedicular type with a central segmental broken pediment with projecting inscription panel flanked by barley-sugar columns, floral scrolls, composite columns and piers, and gadrooned urns on pilaster piers, with acanthus leaf scrolls and corbelled supports below. Also in the south chapel is a monument to Susan Brisco (died 1636), aedicular in brown stone with black stone inscription panel and gilding, featuring a broken segmental pediment over fluted Doric-type columns, a central coat of arms cartouche, and strapwork and corbel decoration. A 14th-century monument to a priest, possibly Ralph de Berners, depicts a recumbent figure with praying hands beneath a crocketed ogee arch.