Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Kingston Deverill

Anglican parish church, primarily 15th century, with substantial restoration undertaken in 1846 by the architects Manners and Gill of Bath. The building is constructed of limestone with rock-facing to the nave and chapel, and roofed in Welsh slate or lead.

The church comprises a nave, south chapel (now serving as an organ chamber), chancel, and central tower, with a south porch. The gabled porch features diagonal buttresses and a coped verge, with a pointed archway displaying ogee cusping and shafts topped by foliated capitals. The nave contains two-light pointed geometric-style windows to left and right, a corbel table with foliated corbels, and a plain blocking course. The rebuilt south chapel has two three-light pointed geometric-style windows with hoodmoulds, matching the corbel table and blocking course of the nave.

The three-stage central tower is buttressed with offsets. Its first stage contains a two-light geometric-style window, the second stage a trefoil-headed window, and the bell-stage features a string course with a two-light Perpendicular window adorned with decorative pierced louvres and a moulded string course incorporating well-carved gargoyles. A square stair turret on the north side of the tower has a chamfered doorway and loopholes, topped by a low broach spire with roll moulding.

The chancel is fitted with two 19th-century cusped lancets with hoodmoulds on the south side. The east end has diagonal buttresses, a large three-light geometric-style window, and a gable enriched with ballflower ornament. The north side contains a cusped lancet, a pointed planked door with strap hinges set within a cusped arch with attached shafts, and a foliated frieze of open trefoils to the blocking course. The north side of the nave holds one two-light geometric-style window to the left of a pointed doorway leading to the vestry, and three to the right, with matching blocking course to the south. The west end displays diagonal buttresses and a fine four-light geometric-style window.

The interior porch has a moulded cusped rafter roof and pointed inner doorway. The five-bay nave features excellent 19th-century cusped arch-braced collar trusses with plainer trusses to the half-bays, embellished with cusped windbraces, and plain ashlar walls. The south chapel, now the organ chamber, contains a two-bay arcade on octagonal piers and responds with cyma-moulded arches, probably 15th century. Double-chamfered tower arches support a ceiling with moulded cross beams. The two-bay chancel displays fine 19th-century cusped and carved arch-braced collar trusses with cusped windbraces and windows featuring cusped rere-arches. The chancel contains a plain reredos with stone foliated frieze and a polychrome tiled floor.

The fittings include a 19th-century brass and wooden communion rail, a fine wooden pulpit with panels of Flemish Flamboyant tracery, a 12th-century cylindrical stone font positioned at the west end, and 19th-century pews with carved bench-ends. A medieval stone effigy of unidentified subject lies in the chancel. A white marble wall tablet in the south chapel commemorates Jane Deer, who died in 1778, and other family members up to 1840. The west window contains 16th-century grisaille glass, whilst the nave displays late 19th-century stained glass dedicated to Philip Moore and Amy Stratton. A fine late 14th-century wood-seated figure of the Virgin and Child, probably German in origin, was given to the church in 1970 by Mr Holman. The restoration was funded by the Dowager Marchioness of Bath.