Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Goring

This is a church of Norman origins, largely demolished in 1836 and rebuilt to the designs of Decimus Burton in the Gothick style, retaining the piers of the Norman arcade, the lower parts of the chancel arch and, according to the church guide, the north and south walls to window sill level.

The church is rendered with slate roofs. The plan comprises a nave with a west end gallery; a chancel with 3-bay aisles and a north-east vestry; a south-east doorway; and a west entrance through the west tower. A vestry block was added to the north side of the chancel in 1966, and a small lavatory block was added to the north face of the tower in 1999.

The exterior is rendered with a smooth finish. The chancel and aisles are buttressed, roofed separately from the nave, and have coped parapets. All windows feature Decorated style tracery and hoodmoulds with carved label stops: the aisle windows are 2- and 3-light, while the chancel window is 5-light. The slender 3-stage west tower has large, gabled, diagonal buttresses rising to the belfry stage only, a plain parapet above a corbelled cornice, and a tall shingled spire. The 2-centred moulded west doorway has detached shafts and carved label stops. The tower features octafoils in roundels and 2-light traceried belfry windows. A sculpted figure of Christ on the south wall is a First World War memorial.

The interior has plastered walls and 3-bay north and south arcades of round piers on moulded bases. The volute-carved capitals appear to have been re-cut if not wholly of 1838. Simple chamfered arches spring from the piers. The aisles have flat plastered ceilings. The chancel arch is plain and chamfered, with unplastered masonry below the springing of the arch appearing to be 12th-century. The flat plastered nave roof in the Gothick tradition is divided into 6 large panels by moulded ribs with shallow Tudor arched braces, pierced trefoils in the spandrels, and coloured vine bosses. The chancel roof is similar in character but with a Tudor arched profile.

The east wall retains its original 1838 Gothick scheme with ogee-headed frames to the Commandments and Creed and blind Gothick arcading below. A deep moulded string on the chancel walls rises over the opposed north and south doorways. On the north side of the chancel is a chamfered arch into a shallow organ chamber. The deep west end gallery, containing organ pipes, is carried on octagonal iron piers with capitals and a boxed-in south-west staircase. The gallery has a blind arcaded front with a Gothick frame to a clock face in the middle. The porch at the bottom stage of the tower has a flat plastered ceiling with a pattern of moulded ribs.

The font is unusual with a round bowl, a carved base, and deep vertical mouldings to the stem. An 1888 polygonal timber pulpit has traceried panels. The nave benches, also from 1888, have shaped ends. The nave paving contains many inscribed slabs. Monuments include a late 15th-century brass, many 18th and early 19th-century wall monuments, an early 18th-century monument to Susan Cook with a lively bust, and a large white marble monument by Chantrey to Isabella Lyon (died 1836). The east ends of the aisles contain stained glass windows by Powell. The chancel arch is covered with a 1954 mural by Hans Feibusch.

This church is of special interest as a handsome 1838 design by Decimus Burton which retains the Norman piers, though re-tooled, and some walling of the original church. The 1888 reordering of the interior complements the pretty Gothick interior, and the building contains a number of interesting monuments.