Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This redundant parish church has 13th-century origins and retains a 14th-century porch, which has been re-sited to its current position. The building underwent substantial restoration in the mid-18th century, followed by 19th-century alterations including works by Benjamin Ferry and George R Crickmay, with minor repairs in the late 20th century.

The church is built from coursed, cut and squared limestone and random limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, beneath stone slate and slate roofs. It follows a cruciform plan, comprising a chancel, nave, north and south transepts, and a west porch.

The south transept and south wall of the nave feature a chamfered stone plinth. The chancel has a low, roll-moulded string course. The gables are topped with stone copings, some surmounted by stone finials. Above the junction between the nave and chancel stands a bellcote with two arched openings under a coped stone capping. The south wall of the nave contains a mid-19th-century window of two lights in a square head in the 14th-century style with labels. The north wall has a blocked 17th-century doorway with a chamfered lintel. The chancel features diagonal corner buttresses, a three-light east window in the Early English style, a single lancet in the north elevation, and two lancets in the south wall. The organ chamber on the north side has a 19th-century window of two pointed-arched lights. The north transept has short corner buttresses and a relieving arch in its north wall. Its west wall contains a 17th-century square-headed three-light window with late-20th-century glass, while the east wall holds a medieval window with two uncusped, pointed-arched lights in a plain stone surround. The 19th-century south transept has diagonal corner buttresses and a later-19th-century pointed-arched south window of three trefoil-headed lights with intersecting tracery and a roll-moulded dripmould with label stops. Its east wall houses a three-light window with two-centred trefoiled openings in a square head with labels, and to the left is a doorway with a moulded two-centred head and labels. Above the doorway sits a recessed stone panel carved with the Bond coat-of-arms within a chamfered surround. The west porch entrance has chamfered jambs and a segmental-pointed head of two chamfered orders. The mid-19th-century west doorway to the nave has an angled two-centred head of two chamfered orders.

The interior contains a gallery at the west end of the nave, which has been widened and is accessed via a closed string staircase with a plain newel and balusters. The gallery front is oak-panelled in 18th-century style with a dentilled cornice and features a wooden relief panel depicting the Crucifixion with the inscription "I IF I BE LIFTED UP, WILL DRAW ALL MEN UNTO ME" (John 12:32). The wooden pulpit incorporates some 17th-century fabric. Plain, fixed wooden pews line the nave. The segmental-arched plaster ceiling and cornice date to approximately 1744. The mid-19th-century chancel arch is two-centred with hollow chamfering, springing from square responds with moulded imposts. Later-19th-century features include the chancel gates, communion rail, patterned floor tiles, and common rafter roof. The north transept arch is mid-19th-century, similar in style to the chancel arch. In the east wall of the north transept is a piscina of around 1300, with above it the remains of a small stone cross bearing a much-worn inscription in incised black lettering, possibly reading "IHS orate pro nobis". A hexagonal stone font with a carved wooden cover occupies the space. The mid-18th-century plaster ceiling survives in this transept. The south transept arch is two-centred with two chamfered orders; the outer is continuous whilst the inner springs from semi-octagonal responds with moulded caps. A low oak screen and door separates the south transept from the rest of the church. The segmental arch above its east window carries a Latin inscription recording that William Bond, the Rector, built the transept; the surround of the south window also bears an inscription. The wooden boarded barrel roof features decorative carved bosses, some displaying shields, with a cornice decorated with flowers and fleur-de-lys motifs.

Wall-mounted memorials include a black marble tablet with moulded freestone architrave, side scrolls and pediment dated 1769; a heavily restored monument of 1641 to John Williams (died 1627) and his wife Jane (died 1636) in the form of a classically-framed tablet with a panel of achievements and cartouches of arms; and three 19th-century canopied monuments of Caen stone to members of the Bond family. The chancel contains a marble First World War memorial plaque.

The stained glass includes the chancel east window of 1924 by artist Martin Travers, and early-20th-century works by the firm of Powell & Sons (Whitefriars) Ltd. Late-20th-century coloured tiles on the walls of the nave and both transepts record the names of villagers displaced during the Second World War. The painted matchboarding is also of late-20th-century date.