Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This parish church represents a complete rebuilding of the medieval church between 1796 and 1816. It was designed by James Wyatt as part of an integrated group with Dodington House and the Orangery, all linked architecturally.

The building is constructed in limestone ashlar with a copper domed roof. The basement level is rendered rubble, while the rear is rendered and lined out. The church follows a Greek cross plan with a portico entrance, nave, north and south transepts, and chancel, all executed in Greek Doric style.

The 3-bay west front features a centre bay broken forward with a plinth and an unfluted Greek Doric portico. This supports a pediment and has tall double doors set in a moulded architrave. Above is a large Diocletian window, with a modillion cornice and balustrade featuring corner dies and two central dies. To each side of the centre bay stands a single storey block containing stairs to galleries. Each has a round-headed recess with an inner round-headed recess and cill, an upper moulded string course (continued around the Orangery), a cornice and blocking course. To the right, the wall curves to meet the Orangery.

Set back from the central front bay, the nave and north and south transepts continue the modillion cornice. The nave has a high parapet, cornice and blocking course, with a domed roof and lantern. The north and south transepts have a small parapet and balustrade matching the front elevation.

The north elevation shows the central bay of the north transept broken forward slightly. At basement level, the central and left bays are visible (the right is concealed by the churchyard). The central bay has a blocked round-headed opening and a 16-pane sash with keystone to the left. This bay also contains a round-headed blind recess set within a band course, similar Diocletian window, modillion cornice and balustrade. The outer bays have tall round-headed recesses rising from the plinth, each containing a 9-pane round-headed sash with splayed upper glazing bars, moulded string course, cornice and blocking course.

The east elevation features the chancel as the central bay, with an upper band course and Diocletian window, modillion cornice, parapet and balustrade. At basement level, a projecting flat-roofed block with coping has a round-headed opening to the left with a 20th-century door and glazed upper section. A slightly higher block to the right has a round-headed opening with double doors and glazed upper section. To the bay to the right at ground floor level is a panelled door with a sash above. An addition with pitched roof, 20th-century windows and door faces south to the left of the centre bay. Set back is a block with an 8-pane sash in front of the south transept. The south transept has a modillion cornice to the south and balustrade to the south and east, and is attached to the Orangery at ground floor level.

Interior

The entrance doors have a floating cornice supported by scrolled acanthus console brackets and moulded architrave. Similar panelled doors to right and left in moulded architrave each lead to stairs serving the north and south galleries in the transepts. A winder stair to the north (gallery now missing) and a dog-leg stair to the south have cast iron railing balustrades, wreathed, with semi-circular recesses on each side of the stair entry and segmental-headed openings to the galleries.

The south gallery has a semi-circular recess to the rear with a cast iron fireplace, and a cast iron screen across the front in five panels of intersecting numbers with rosette bosses. To the east, a corridor leads to a private entry for Dodington House through the Orangery. Each transept has a coved plaster ceiling with cornice and beaded panels with bronze rosettes. The south gallery floor has marbled panelling with a Greek key patterned frieze (mostly missing). The south transept has a 6-panelled east door leading to the Orangery.

The square nave has a high arch to the entrance, with the chancel and transepts rising from pilasters with recessed panels to the inner side and cornice. The soffits of the arches are coffered with bronze rosettes. At each corner of the nave stands a fluted Greek Doric column with architrave as a springer for four inner arches, also coffered with bronze rosettes (cornice missing at the top of the plinths). Pendentives between the arches are in moulded surrounds with marbled centres and cornice. The coffered dome above has rosettes at lower level, a Vitruvian scroll cornice, and the upper part is divided into sections by beaded fillets, with vertical sections above featuring patterned painting and a lantern. The chancel ceiling matches that of the transepts.

Fittings

A contemporary wooden reredos features a round-headed arch with a scrolled acanthus keystone and putti in the spandrels. The central panel, carved in the late 19th century, bears symbols of the Passion. The altar stands on marble wood with a recessed panel on a plinth of yellow Siena marble.

A late 19th-century bowl font rests on four slender Corinthian columns on an octagonal marble plinth in the centre of the nave. Five Art Nouveau gasoliers of bronze and lapis lazuli are detached from their original positions. A coat of arms hatchment is displayed in the south transept gallery. The floor in the nave and chancel is marble. An early 19th-century marble tablet with fluted columns, pediment and coat of arms to the Codrington family is mounted on the north wall at the entrance. The window over the south gallery contains early 20th-century glass brought from Ypres Cathedral.

At the time of survey in September 1984, the building was in poor condition following an attack of dry rot around 1950, and was undergoing restoration.