Church Of St Arilda

The Church of St. Arilda is a parish church dating to the 15th century, with a tower and north porch of that period. The remainder of the church was rebuilt in 1899 by Waller, following a fire in 1897. The church is constructed of coursed rubble for the tower and north porch, with snecked rubble for the rest of the structure, featuring stone dressings and plain tiled roofs with weathered raised coped verges and ridge coping. It consists of a nave, north and south aisles, north and south porches, a north-east tower, and a chancel.

The architecture is primarily of Perpendicular style for the tower and north porch, with the remainder reflecting a 14th-century style. The west front of the nave features a three-light window with trefoil heads and a hood mould, along with two-light pointed arched windows in each aisle, slits in the gables, weathered buttresses, and quoins. The south aisle has three bays, with two three-light windows in the Perpendicular style, a central gabled porch with a pointed arch doorway, chamfered surround, and hood mould forming a continuous string. The north aisle mirrors this with a similar window to the left and a two-light window to the right. The north porch features a plinth, set-back buttresses, a cornice, a parapet with pierced panelling, and an image niche above a pointed arched entrance with a moulded surround and stopped hood mould.

The three-stage tower has single lights with trefoil heads and leaded lights to the first and second stages facing east and north respectively, and two-light windows with bell louvres, hood mould, and relieving arch on all sides at the third stage. It is accentuated by weathered diagonal buttresses, strings, a cornice with two gargoyles per side, a pierced parapet, and pinnacles. The chancel has a single light with a hood mould to the south, a continuous string, a three-light east window with a stopped hood mould and relieving arch, weathered diagonal buttresses, and a cross finial.

Inside the north porch, a framed coved ceiling includes moulded beams dividing the space into eight panels, a round-headed arched door with a chamfered surround, a stopped hood mould, and an image niche above. The nave’s arcade has four bays with no capitals, featuring a continuous hood mould with foliate stops. A five-bay roof extends across the nave, constructed with arched braces rising from corbels, cambered collars, a single row of purlins, and braces between purlins and principals. The aisles, also with five bays, share a similar roof construction, and include a door to the south and north with segmental heads. The pointed chancel arch springs from foliate impost blocks on half-shafts, with a former door to the rood-loft on the north side. The two-bay chancel has a related roof construction and a framed ceiling of 36 panels with moulded beams, decorative bosses, and a brattished wall-plate. A pointed arched door to the tower in a hollow chamfered surround, alongside a small aumbry to the north, are also present. All windows are set in deep splayed reveals. The church contains late 19th-century fittings, including a replica of a Norman font that was destroyed in the 1897 fire.