Parish Church Of St Mary

The Parish Church of St Mary is a church built between 1866 and 1867 by James Mountford Allen, constructed in the Perpendicular style. It consists of a nave with north and south aisles, a south transept, a chancel, a west tower, a south porch, and a vestry located at the north-east corner. The exterior walls are of rubble masonry with some freestone blocks, featuring stone dressings for plinths, window surrounds, strings, and parapets. The roof is slate. Exterior details include moulded plinths, strings, labels with some head stops, and an embattled parapet. Windows are of 2 to 4 lights with panel tracery over ogee trefoil-cusped main lights. The south transept window has Y-tracery, and the east window incorporates Through King-mullions. The west tower rises in four stages with diagonal buttresses and a stair-turret in the north-east angle, featuring a west door and large Perpendicular-style bell openings.

The interior of the nave has a four-bay arcade. The piers are each of four equal straight-chamfered responds, with sunk quadrants in the diagonals, and plain capitals with moulded abaci and neckings. The chancel arch is carried on two orders of responds with still-leaf capitals, and a strainer-arch is set transversely between the arcade wall and the south transept. The nave roof is a timber construction of alternating tie-beams and arch-braced collar rafters, with carved stone corbels supporting through purlins with ashlaring at the wall-plate. The chancel roof is also arch-braced, ceiled, and supported by angel corbels.

Notable interior features include a font with a possible 12th-century bowl on a stone base. There are brasses depicting Sir Thomas Brook (died 1419) and his wife Dame Joan Brook (died 1437), with Sir Thomas shown wearing an SS collar. The inscription on the rectangular margin is intact, recording their dates of death and was relayed/restored in 1867. The oak pulpit, from the early 16th century, has linen-fold panels (some replaced). The late 16th-century communion table is made of walnut with bulbous turned legs supporting Ionic capitals. A 17th-century reading desk, is of Flemish style, with caryatids and foliage decoration. Stained glass in the north aisle window commemorates the Rev C A Bragge (died 1923) and his wife Emily. The church is set back from Fore Street within its churchyard and forms a group with its surroundings.