Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church with 12th-century origins, substantially rebuilt in the 15th century, with chancel and vestry added in 1897. The building is constructed of limestone rubble with stone dressings, the tower of squared rubble, and the chancel and vestry in ashlar. The east wall of the chancel and the whole vestry are in sandstone. Roofs are slate with raised coped verges and cross finials to gables, with some double Roman tiles.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, south porch, chancel, and north vestry. A fragment of the Norman south doorway survives. The architectural style is predominantly Perpendicular, with the chancel and vestry in neo-Decorated style.

The three-stage west tower has a pointed arched west door set in a moulded and hollow-chamfered surround with hood mould and stops. Above this is a three-light Perpendicular window with cusped heads and hood mould. The second stage contains a south lancet with cusped head and hood mould. The third stage has two-light bell-openings to each side with Somerset tracery, pointed arched heads, and hood mould. The tower has a plinth, set-back weathered buttresses, string courses, and gargoyles to the top string. The parapet is decorated with blank arcading and has diagonal shafts to the centre of the sides and square pinnacles at the corners. The south-east stair turret has lancets and an embattled parapet with quatrefoil frieze, topped by a ribbed spirelet with cockerel weathervane.

The two-bay nave has to its north a three-light Perpendicular window with hood mould and a narrow two-light window with cusped heads in Decorated style, set in a rectangular surround with masonry infilling to the upper part. A rubble lean-to structure in the centre has a double Roman tiled roof. The nave has a hollow-chamfered eaves cornice, a rainwater head dated 1897, dressed stone quoins, and stone ridge coping. The south elevation has a similar three-light window and remains of a memorial tablet. To the right is a 19th-century restoration of a three-light Perpendicular window and a 18th-century memorial tablet with bolection-moulded architrave, scallop-shell frieze, and cornice.

The off-centre gabled porch has a pointed arched door with moulded and hollow-chamfered surround and hood mould, with late 19th-century doors.

The two-bay chancel has a south-west stair turret with gableted top, weathered buttresses, and diagonal buttresses. Two two-light south windows have reticulated tracery with stopped hood moulds. A similar larger three-light east window is present, with a trefoil in the gable and small pinnacles to the sides of the verges.

The two-bay vestry has two two-light east windows with trefoil heads and hood mould, and similar two-light windows to the north and west. The west door is segmental-headed.

Interior

The tower has a 19th-century ceiling with moulded ribs. A narrow door with chamfered depressed four-centred arch leads to the tower, while a tall pointed arch opens to the nave, decorated with one broad wave-mould and two inner narrow mouldings.

The nave has a five-bay wagon roof with moulded principals rising from head corbels and large gold-painted bosses along a moulded ridge purlin. The north wall retains remains of an arched recess below the window to the east, possibly the former site of a tomb. The north-west window has a chamfered rere-arch, while the north-east and south-west windows have moulded surrounds. The inner segmental head to the south door has its upper part filled with Perpendicular tracery and 19th-century doors. The outer surround of the door consists of two narrow wave-moulds and a hollow chamfer with a four-centred arch. Stone benches flank the sides of the porch, and the porch has a 19th-century roof of common rafters and collars.

A tall pointed chancel arch with panelled soffit separates the nave from the chancel. The chancel has a ceiled four-bay roof with moulded ribs and bosses at intersections, with a brattished wall-plate. A stone newel stair to the south-west leads to a gallery over the screen. The east wall contains a piscina. A segmental-headed arch with wave-mouldings opens to the vestry. The vestry has a similar three-bay ceiled roof.

Fittings and Monuments

The font in the nave has a circular bowl on a circular stem with close early 16th-century tracery on the bowl and small naively-carved demi-figures. It is topped with a finely carved polygonal wooden cover.

A screen across the chancel arch, attributed to Pugin (probably the younger), has four-light divisions with flamboyant tracery, coving with ribs, and angel-figures against the main posts.

The chancel contains a pair of late 17th-century and early 18th-century sanctuary chairs with scrolled carving and a 19th-century panelled wooden reredos. A late 19th-century stone tablet in the vestry records rectors.

All monuments have been reset in the vestry. These include a marble tablet with urn to John Hellier (1795), a marble tablet with draped urn and pediment to James Hellier (1776), a 19th-century oval stone tablet with wreath to the Hellier family (date illegible), a marble tablet to Henry Hellier (1775), a stone tablet with scrolled pediment to Thomas Beale (1704), and a 19th-century brass plate recording members of the Hellier family. A mid-19th-century east window contains stained glass in memory of the Hellier family.