Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is an Anglican parish church dating from the late 12th to early 13th centuries, with significant additions and alterations over the centuries. It was restored in 1855 by T. H. Wyatt. The church is constructed of limestone and flint chequers, with an ashlar limestone tower and Welsh slate roofs, featuring stone coped verges.

The plan incorporates a nave and aisles, a chancel with a south vestry and north organ chamber, a west tower, and a north porch. The gabled north porch, dating to 1855, has a pointed door with a hoodmould and foliated terminals, and cusped lancet windows to the sides. The north aisle features a 2-light Perpendicular-style window with hoodmould and foliated terminals, a diagonal buttress, a 2-light Perpendicular-style window to the west end, and a 3-light Perpendicular-style window to its left. The east end of the aisle contains a similar window and a good 18th-century cartouche. The clerestory displays three trefoils. The north side of the chancel has a pair of cusped lancets, while the 3-light east window displays 19th-century flowing tracery with carved head terminals to the hoodmould; the south side has two cusped lancets, one of which retains its original 13th-century head. The south aisle has a 2-light Perpendicular-style window to the east, a Tudor-arched door, two 2-light, and one 3-light Perpendicular-style windows. Its clerestory exhibits three trefoils. The three-stage west tower has a moulded plinth, diagonal buttresses, a 19th-century Tudor-arched door on the west side, a string course to the second stage, one 3-light Perpendicular window, and bell stage louvres – a pair of 2-light square-headed openings to the north, south, and west faces. A string course sits above to a battlemented parapet, and a stair turret is situated on the north side of the tower, featuring two loops.

Inside, the porch has a scissor-rafter roof. The 3-bay nave boasts an arch-braced collar roof resting on foliated corbels. A double-chamfered pointed arcade, originally constructed around 1200, has an eastern bay added in 1855; its cylindrical columns have scalloped capitals, some convincingly restored by Wyatt, although the west respond of the south aisle is original. The north aisle has one square pier with a square west respond, displaying zig-zag capitals and carved heads to the stops of the chamfers. A double-chamfered tower arch and a chancel arch, reset by Wyatt, include grouped shafts with finely carved stiff-leaf and water-leaf capitals. The chancel features an arch-braced scissor roof of four bays, supported by good foliated corbels. Double-chamfered arches lead to the vestry and organ chamber. A reused 17th-century arcaded screen is located on the north side, while a trefoiled piscina is situated on the south wall. Stained glass in the chancel includes signed windows by Lavers, Barraud, and Westlake of London (late 19th century), with a particularly fine, unsigned east window. Glass in the south aisle is the work of Gibbs (1855 and 1856), and G. E. R. Smith (to Edith Wansborough, died 1954). Wall tablets, primarily in the south aisle, include a marble memorial to R. Gouldisborough, died 1735, and a classical tablet to John Wansborough, died 1833. The church contains pews, a pulpit, and a notably good Romanesque-style font created by Wyatt.