Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a parish church of Anglican foundation located on the north side of Church Lane in Portbury. The building dates primarily from the 12th century, with significant alterations and extensions carried out in the early 13th century, around 1300, and in the 14th and 15th centuries. It underwent substantial restoration between 1870 and 1875. The church comprises a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, a south porch, chancel, and chantry chapels.

The exterior is constructed of coursed sandstone rubble with freestone dressings of oolitic limestone, beneath a 20th-century tiled roof. The west tower dates to the mid-15th century and consists of four stages with diagonal buttresses and a plain embattled parapet topped with pinnacles. A polygonal stair turret projects from the south-east corner, also featuring an embattled parapet. The bell chamber contains two-light windows with quatrefoil tracery within circles. The main west window has three lights with moulded surrounds, accompanied by a west door similarly treated.

The north aisle features clasping buttresses and an embattled parapet with blank arcading. Three windows in Perpendicular style contain three lights with cinquefoil heads and chamfered mullions, set beneath square dripmoulds and relieving arches. The north door has a chamfered surround with a four-centred head. A five-light east window displays stepped, cusped lights, while a three-light west window contains cusped lancet forms.

The chancel is buttressed by clasping buttresses and has projecting north chantry chapels. The western chapel contains a triple lancet window with chamfered surrounds. The eastern chapel is gabled and features three-light Perpendicular windows with cinquefoil ogee heads to the tracery. The main east window has three lights with geometric tracery incorporating intersecting elements, cusping, and daggers. Two three-light windows of around 1300 appear on the south side, displaying Geometric style with cusped intersecting tracery, dagger tracery, and quatrefoils. A priest's door with a round arch on small corbels provides entrance from the south.

The south aisle features an embattled parapet with blank, panelled arcade and angle buttresses with offsets. A five-light east window has trefoil heads to the tracery and moulded mullions beneath a four-centred arch. Two three-light Perpendicular windows feature cinquefoil heads to the tracery and panelled lights above, set under square hoodmoulds.

The south porch is a 15th-century structure of two storeys with an embattled parapet and blank, panelled arcade. Diagonal buttresses with offsets frame a moulded doorcase.

The interior preserves a 12th-century south door with two colonnettes featuring scalloped capitals. The arch displays an interlocking key ornament covering both intrados and extrados, accompanied by a chain of lozenges with fleurons. A 15th-century image niche is also present.

The nave contains five-bay arcades with double chamfered arches and piers without capitals, terminating in stops at the base. Square stone seats are integrated into the structure, with full-length stone benches running along both north and south aisles. The east respond of the east bay of the north arcade rests upon a coarsely cut head. Triple sedilia and piscina feature in the south arcade, displaying trefoil heads and colonnettes with circular capitals. An ogee-headed stoup to the east of the south door is hollow chamfered with fleurons. Rere-arches appear to windows of the north arcade and the east window of the south arcade. A large squint opens from the north aisle.

The roof structure of the 19th century rests upon a collection of 44 carved corbel heads, with late 12th-century examples in the south aisle, late 14th and 15th-century examples in the north aisle, and late 12th-century examples in the nave. The nave roof incorporates crown posts.

The tower arch is 15th-century work featuring hollow and wave mouldings. The chancel arch dates to around 1300 and was restored in the 19th century, but rests upon late 12th-century piers comprising five clustered shafts, the innermost possessing a keel moulding. Scalloped capitals crown these piers, with bases positioned five feet above the present floor level.

Within the chancel, cusped rere-arches rest on corbel heads flanking the east window and the eastern window of the south wall. Triple sedilia and piscina feature trefoil heads with roll mouldings and fillets, carved head stops, and columns with circular capitals. Carved corbels for lamps and lenten veil are evident. The chancel features a restored wagon roof. The eastern chantry chapel contains a fine ribbed, pointed tunnel vault.

The 19th-century pulpit is executed in Perpendicular style timber on an ashlar base. The 12th-century font comprises a square, scalloped bowl mounted on a circular stem and square base. Fourteenth-century bench ends appear at the eastern end of the choir stalls, with re-used parts of 14th-century benches in the south aisle.

Monuments include a stone tablet of incised work with round-headed surround commemorating Thomas Cauldwell, who died in 1770. A brass to Sara Kemish, who died in 1621, displays kneeling and lying figures of children beneath a 19th-century stone surround.