Church Of St Mary

LONG CRICHEL

ST 91 SE VILLAGE STREET (North side)

5/54 Church of St Mary 18.3.55 GV II

Parish church, C15 west tower, remainder of 1852. Ashlar and banded flint and ashlar with ashlar dressings. Tiled roofs with stone-slate margins and end stone copings. Plan: west tower, nave; chancel; north and south transepts. West tower: two stage, embattled with pinnacles and gargoyles; diagonal buttresses west, square set to east; vice turret to north with rectangular loops and an ogee-headed niche; pointed 2-light belfry windows with returned labels; 3-light, pointed west window with vertical tracery; C19 south doorway with moulded, pointed head and canopy porch bearing bishop's mitre. Nave: carved stone cornice; 2-light, square-headed windows with vertical tracery. South transept; brattished parapet; south window of 2 lights under 4-centred head and label with carved stops; single-light, square-headed window west; door with 4-centred head east. Chancel: apsidal in ashlar; crocketted pinnacles rise above buttresses; openwork parapet; traceried single light windows with labels having carved stops. North transept; lancets with returned labels to east and west; pointed, traceried window to north, blank below springing line; 4-centred door to east.

Interior (inspection not possible, description based on RCHM and Newman and Pevsner): general form is Georgian rather than full gothic revival; apsidal chancel with wooden panels of reticulated tracery between radial arched braces; roof divided into small panes; C15 Purbeck marble font with octagonal, panelled bowl and panelled stem; reset brass to John Govys, c.1360. (RCHM, Dorset, 1972, p 258).

Listing NGR: ST9775310272