Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is an Anglican parish church with probable origins in the late 12th or 13th century, to which a tower was added in the 15th century. The building was largely rebuilt by T H Wyatt in 1863 and restored by E H Lingen Barker in 1878-79.

The church is constructed of dressed Chilmark limestone ashlar and rubble stone with some flint. The roofs are tiled with ceramic ridge cresting. The plan is oriented approximately west to east and comprises a three-bay nave with a south aisle, south porch, west tower, two-bay chancel, and north vestry.

The 15th-century west tower is of three stages with string courses and diagonal buttresses. The moulded pointed west doorway has king mask terminals to the hoodmould and dates to the 19th century. Above it is a 19th-century three-light window with reticulated tracery. The north side has an arrowloop to the second stage, while the south side bears a gilded circular clockface. The bellstage has one- and two-light Perpendicular windows with louvres, and a string course leads to the battlemented parapet. The west window to the nave is of three lights with reticulated tracery.

The 19th-century gabled south porch has diagonal buttresses, a coped verge, and side walls with cusped ogee lancets. Its Tudor-arched doorway contains a planked door with ornamental hinges. The south aisle has one two-light pointed window with ogee lights to the left of the porch and two to the right. Its east end has a two-light Perpendicular-style window with a recessed quatrefoil over and a diagonal buttress. The north side of the nave has three 19th-century two-light pointed windows, and an ashlar stack is attached to the west buttress. The gabled vestry has a shouldered planked door to the east and a pair of shouldered lights to the north side. The chancel has diagonal buttresses. Its north side has two lancets and the south has a single lancet, all 19th-century. The east end has a 19th-century Perpendicular window of three lights with a hoodmould. In the gable above are datestones inscribed with WL/1807 and IM/1622.

The three-bay south arcade is 19th-century with plain chamfered pointed arches on cylindrical piers with moulded capitals. The nave has a tiled floor with cast-iron heating grilles. The seating, including the choir stalls, appears to be Wyatt's, though that to the nave and aisle was somewhat rearranged by Lingen Barker. The organ pipes are set in a pointed chamfered archway to the south chapel.

The transitional pointed chancel arch is 12th-century with keel-moulded shafts, crocketed capitals and square abaci. The north-east capital has vine carving, with a roll-moulded arch with scroll-carved ornament around the top. The chancel has a 19th-century stone reredos with interlaced arcading; its upper part was cut away in 1913, probably to reveal the east window. The chancel floor is laid with polychrome tiles, and its altar incorporates pulpit panels from the Church of St Mary, Oxford, brought here by James Ingram. Both the nave and chancel have deep arch-braced collar trusses resting on stone corbels; those in the chancel are carved as angels. The aisle has an arch-braced collared roof, and the south chapel has a plain rafter roof.

The principal fittings include a 12th-century cylindrical stone font with roll mouldings, possibly recut, on a short columnar stem with a later base. A Jacobean polygonal carved wooden pulpit has 19th-century back panels and a sounding board, reset on a 19th-century stone plinth. The stained glass includes a two-light aisle window of 1844, possibly coloured by James Ingram; a commemorative window of 1898 celebrating Queen Victoria's golden jubilee; and unsigned glass of 1910 in the east window. In the south chapel is part of an early 17th-century stone monument probably erected to commemorate Sir John Mompesson (died 1584). It has two round arches and composite columns to a carved frieze and cornice with the Mompesson arms in panels below. In the tower is a stone and slate memorial tablet with floral drops and gadrooned apron and a scrolled pediment with torch to John Ingram, died 1785, and a Gothic stone tablet over the south door to Jacobus Ingram, died 1844.