Parish Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin

This Anglican parish church stands on the site of a Saxon church. Although the church dates to the 12th century, it was substantially rebuilt and enlarged over later centuries. The chancel is Early English from the early 13th century, with major additions from the 14th century, but the majority of the church is in the Perpendicular style of the late 14th and 15th centuries. The building was restored between 1882 and 1885 by W Wood Bethell of Bristol.

The church comprises a west tower, nave with clerestorey, south aisle and chapel, north and south porches, and chancel. The walls are constructed of coursed and random rubble with squared ashlar to the tower and freestone dressings; the chancel is roofed in Cotswold stone slate. The north porch is built in ashlar.

The West Tower is a 15th-century structure of six stages with diagonal buttresses. It has a small Perpendicular embattled parapet with gargoyles, and a 19th-century spirelet at the south-east corner at the top of the south-east stair turret. The bell chamber contains single plain square-headed windows.

The Nave has a roof that was raised in the 15th century, topped by an embattled parapet. It features tall three-light square-headed Perpendicular windows with cusped heads and drip moulds. The clerestorey has lower windows with a cill band, and the structure is buttressed with set-offs.

The Chancel contains two lancet windows with roll mould surrounds; the north-east window is 14th-century. It has Y-tracery with cusped heads and a cusped rere-arch on the interior. The east window is a restored Perpendicular five-light design, with single lancet and three-light windows on the south side matching those in the nave.

The South Aisle features Perpendicular windows as in the nave. The South Porch is plain, two storeys in late Perpendicular style, and carries an 18th-century sundial.

The North Porch is 15th-century, two storeys with diagonal buttresses fitted with attached pinnacles to the upper stages and a plain parapet. Its two-light cross window has cusped heads and a drip mould with carved head stops.

Interior Features

The north doorway is Romanesque, with two orders of roll moulding and an outer arch decorated with dogtooth moulding. A mutilated stoup survives nearby. The nave contains a four-bay arcade to the south aisle with octagonal piers. The roof is a late 19th-century copy of the Perpendicular original. Two ashlar doorways with four-centred heads in the south aisle lead to the rood stair and loft.

The Chapel has a trefoil-headed piscina. The Chancel preserves an Early English chancel arch with a stiff stalk capital to the south, though it was extensively rebuilt when the nave roof was raised. A 14th-century tomb recess or Easter sepulchre on the north wall has a cinquefoil canopy. A double piscina with two centre heads continues as cill bands on both sides of the chancel. The chancel roof dates to the 15th century.

The 15th-century pulpit, restored in the 19th century, features trefoil-headed panels and an enriched top carved with vine leaf ornament. Its vase stem incorporates fragments of Saxon interlaced work. The 17th-century font has an octagonal bowl decorated with lozenges and a fluted stem, though it may be a remodelling of an earlier piece. Seventeenth-century box pews were cut down and remodelled by Wood Bethell.

A north window of the nave contains reassembled mediaeval glass fragments representing St Giles.

Monuments and Memorials

The church contains numerous monuments of distinction. In the south aisle stands an excellent chest tomb to Edward Cosin (died 1689), with Ionic columns, heraldry, scrolls and cartouche. Wall plaques commemorate Cole (1773), Parnell (1791), Jobbins (mid-18th century), Esbury (1766, by T Paty of Bristol), and Curtis (1784, by W Lancashire of Bath).

On the north wall of the nave is a monument to James Cleare (died 1790, by W Paty of Bristol), in oval coloured marble with trailing willow and urn.

The chancel contains the most significant memorials. On the north wall is a sarcophagus to Sir Robert Jenkinson (died 1766) with drapery and heraldry in coloured marble, and a monument to the 2nd Earl of Liverpool (died 1828), erected in 1858. A tablet to M Symonds dates to 1719. The south wall carries a monument to the 1st Earl of Liverpool (died 1808, by R Westmacott).