Parish Church Of St Martin

The Parish Church of St Martin is a parish church located in Shipton Gorge. The west tower dates from the early 15th century, while the rest of the church was completely rebuilt in 1862 by Hicks. The tower features coursed rubble-stone walls and a clay tile roof with stone gable copings. Stone crosses adorn the gables of the chancel, nave, and porch. The church consists of a nave, a north aisle, a chancel, and a south porch.

The west tower has two stages, with plinth mouldings, string courses, and a crenellated parapet. A large half-hexagonal newel stair is located on the south wall. The west doorway has chamfered jambs and a triangular arch set in a square head, featuring blank shields and cleavers in the spandrels. Above this doorway is a restored three-light window with trefoil-cusping and panel tracery, along with hollow-chamfered jambs. The tower also has two-light bell openings with quatrefoil heads.

The nave, rebuilt in the 19th century, includes three two-light windows that are cusped and set in square heads. The chancel has a window of the same design, and its east window is a three-light window with panel tracery and a label with head stops. Diagonal buttresses are positioned at the corners of the chancel.

Inside, the tower arch features a modern bracket moulding. The north arcade has four bays with quatrefoil piers and four-centred arches. The 19th-century roof is of the arch-braced type, supported by hammer beams and high collars. The chancel arch is pointed, with a bracket-moulding and a single respond, and has foliage-carved capitals. The soffit is adorned with a filleted roll-mould. The chancel has a similar two-bay roof construction, while the north aisle roof features its own arch-braced design supported by carved corbels.

Notable fittings include a heptagonal font with simple cusped panels, a plain cylindrical stem that becomes heptagonal beneath the bowl, and a stone pulpit from the 19th century, designed by Grassby, which is half-octagonal with cusped panel sides and a running leaf-scroll cornice. There is also a wall tablet made of white marble on a slate base, dedicated to the memory of Jacob Browne, who died on October 24th, 1817, at the age of 70.