Church Of St Mary

Church of St. Mary, Guildford

This church is of exceptional historical importance, combining pre-conquest and Norman elements with later medieval additions. The structure exhibits a cruciform plan with a central crossing tower, aisled nave to the west, and a truncated chancel to the east flanked by apsidal chapels.

The tower is the most significant feature. Built around 1040, it is the most important surviving pre-conquest structure in Surrey. It rises in three stages with thin pilaster strip buttresses on the lower stages, a battlemented parapet, and tile-on-edge quoining above. A scrolled gilt wrought-iron finial crowned with a weathervane sits atop. Clock faces appear on the north and south sides, with a lancet window to the east and two trefoil-headed lights to the north.

The Norman transepts date to circa 1100 and were lengthened into apsidal chapels around 1180. The nave arcades, built circa 1170-1180, feature four bays on round piers with half-pier responds. The north arcade has pointed arches of square section with hollow chamfer; the south has keeled roll-moulding. Capitals on the north arcade, except the central one, are square with scalloped decoration encircled with spirals, nail head, dogtooth and hollow chamfers, with grooved abaci. The aisles were widened in the 13th century and re-roofed in the 15th century. The majority of windows were inserted in the 14th century. The chancel apse was removed in 1825 and the church underwent restoration by T. Goodchild in 1882.

The exterior is constructed of flint and chalk rubble with clunch dressings, though the clunch on the tower parapet was replaced by Bargate stone. Plain tiled roofs cover the structure.

The west end features a triple gabled elevation flanked by angle buttresses, with an apex crucifix on the centre gable. The outer gables display 19th-century trefoil windows; the north gable contains a foiled 3-light window and roundel above a lower square window. The south gable displays a Decorated style four-light window with mouchette tracery and a chalk-dressed niche below. Double doors to the centre sit in a deep surround beneath hood moulding.

The south side presents lancet windows in the aisle alternating with offset buttresses. A 3-light 19th-century window appears to the west, with two 3-light windows on the south chancel chapel separated by a buttress. A stair-vice rises to the end of the south aisle.

The east end features apsidal chancel chapels flanking a central gabled chancel with a diamond panel and roundel above a large 5-cinquefoil-light east window.

The north side contains a Decorated style chancel chapel window of three lights with oval tracery in the upper lights breaking through the string course. A triple ogee-head window in a chamfered surround adjoins. The north aisle displays lancet fenestration in a chamfered surround with end buttresses flanking. A 19th-century timber-framed and flint porch with scalloped bargeboards and ogee-tracery leaded glazing sits at the west end of the north side. The north door, dating to the 13th century, features three orders of Sussex marble shafts on double roll bases under moulded bell caps, with an arch moulded in rolls and hollows—one with triple fillet, the other with keeled moulding.

The interior reveals the chronological development of the building. Four steps lead from the nave to the crossing, which displays the earliest work in the church. Massive attached semi-circular responds, under scalloped capitals, are attached to the west piers, with the western arch decorated with roll moulding. Smaller Norman arches to the north and south sides feature impost courses, double-splayed Saxon windows, and pilaster strips above. The crossing itself has a flat roof.

Three further steps lead to the chancel, which contains a vault of two bays dating to circa 1220. The eastern bay is 2 feet narrower, with a transverse arch of one order rising from attached wall shafts comprising three smaller shafts—the central one keeled in section—with plain bell caps. The main rib on the east wall rests on pairs of shafts on pointed corbels. Diagonal ribs to the quadripartite vault have hollow chamfer between roll mouldings, with the hollow chamfer of the western bay decorated with a dogtooth band. Central floral bosses ornament the vaults. Blocked lancet windows in deep reveals appear on the east side of the main transverse arch, with two round-headed windows in deep reveals on the north and south sides of the east bays, now opening through to the flanking chapels. A two-bay braced collared-rafter roof covers the north and south chapels, with thick vaulting ribs running against the entrance arches and scissor bracing in the Chapel of St. John.

The North Chancel Chapel has an entrance arch with flattened responds; caps are scalloped with grooved and chamfered abaci. Three windows pierce the chapel: the middle is a 3-light window and the northern a 2-light window, both from the 14th century. An early 14th-century north window near the apse features three ogee lights with cinquefoil and quatrefoils over in a square head.

The South Chancel Chapel (St. Mary's Chapel) has an entrance arch on square jambs with small engaged half-round shafts on moulded bases, moulded bell caps above with grooved and hollow-chamfered abaci. Two lancet windows pierce the chapel—the eastern one original, the southern one raised in the 13th century. Above the north jamb of the tower arch is a late 15th-century door to the rood loft.

The nave features a thick wooden wall plate on corbels above the arcades, with a collared-rafter roof. Roofs over the aisles have chamfered and braced 4-centre arched tie-beams on corbelled wall plate, with mouchette-style piercing in spandrels and floral decoration on corbels.

The furnishings include a piscina in the South Chancel Chapel with an aumbry or paten place above under a trefoil head and a round bowl projecting. A square recess on the north aisle wall may be an aumbry; a piscina on the south aisle wall retains a mutilated boss and a small credence shelf above. A 19th-century chalk and grey marble Victorian Gothic pulpit features dogtooth mouldings and floral carving, with a hexagonal body on a centre stem; each face is pierced by a two-light and foiled roundel opening. A chalk font has a square plinth and bowl on a centre stem surrounded by angle piers with scalloped caps. A hatchment dated 1707 hangs over the North door. Part of a 15th-century reredos from the south chapel has been incorporated into an organ case.

Wall paintings once covered the entire north chancel chapel apse and were recorded in the 19th century, though largely lost. Some traces of painting survive on the soffit of the entrance arch to the chapel.

A stained glass window in the west window of the north aisle was created by the Royal Bavarian Art Institute for Stained Glass circa 1850.

The church held significance as a place of Royal worship during the 12th and 13th centuries when Guildford was a favoured Royal abode. Thomas Becket may have celebrated Mass here. The Reverend Charles Dodgeson (Lewis Carroll) also preached at St. Mary's.