Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a church dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, substantially remodelled and rebuilt in the 1860s by Henry Woodyer. It is constructed of rough-coursed Bargate and ironstone rubble with ashlar dressings. The roof is tiled, with a timber-framed bellcote and spire covered in wood shingles. The church comprises a nave, a chancel to the east, a vestry to the north, a porch to the south, and a small gabled bellcote to the west end with a broach spire and a crucifix finial. The bellcote features a three-light arcaded opening with jamb shafts and blocked centre lights, flanked by louvred outer lights. A lancet window is set above a four-light "Decorated" style window with a four-light "rose" window above. Diagonal buttresses are set off at the west end, and at the north and south of the nave, with "Decorated" style windows in chamfered surrounds. A curious east-end window has three cusped lights and a central, foiled roundel with flower-like tracery, within a double-coved surround. A single-storey vestry adjoins the north side at a right angle, with a 20th-century bay on the end. The gabled porch to the south has cusped bargeboards and open traceried arcades over boarded sides, set on a stone plinth. The porch features a four-centre arch with fleur-de-lys and foliate carving in the spandrels, and stop-chamfered purlins to the roof. The surround to the south door is deeply moulded and chamfered.

Inside, braced collar roofs cover the nave and chancel, and the floors are tiled. A large bellcage is located at the west end, with chamfered posts and braces. Arched bracing is found at the lower stages with render-infilled double St Andrews cross bracing. An elegant 19th-century spiral staircase, with broach stops to the chamfered posts and a trefoil pierced frieze covering tread ends, is tucked into a corner. A wide chancel arch is supported by half-pier responds with moulded caps. The chancel roof has square panelled ceilings with billeted wall plates, diamond panels with fleur-de-lys and shield boss decorations in the easternmost bay. The church contains 19th-century fittings, including pierced, cusped, and arcaded altar rails and choir stalls with shallow fan-vaulted canopies. A panelled pulpit with crocketed ogee-arch panels is also present. The solid font is made of multicoloured marbles inlaid in chalk, red, green, and white, of octagonal plan with trefoil and quatrefoil panels, an octagonal stem with broach stops forming a square plinth, and an elaborate, crocketed, and pierced octagonal spired cover. Two 18th-century wall tablets are present as monuments, and stained glass windows are by Hardman. Fragments of 14th-century glass are found in the south-west (St Peter) and north-east (St Paul) windows of the nave, set under renewed glass canopies.