Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

A small parish church comprising nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. The building dates from the 14th century (nave and chancel), with a late 15th-century tower. It was substantially restored between 1878 and 1883, and received an early 20th-century replacement roof. The walls are constructed of stone rubble, principally mudstone with some volcanic trap, with volcanic ashlar dressings and details. The roofs are slate with crested ridge tiles.

The church is predominantly Perpendicular in style. The unbuttressed west tower comprises two stages with a chamfered volcanic plinth, plain dripmould and an embattled parapet with crocketted pinnacles at each corner. Large two-light belfry windows are now partly blocked, and there is an unrestored cinquefoil-headed window to the ringing floor on the south side. The west side features an unrestored flat-arched volcanic doorway with a chamfered surround and a relief cross in the keystone of the relieving arch above. Above this doorway is a two-light Perpendicular window with restored tracery and hoodmould. A square stair turret projects from the north side of the tower, rising only as high as the drip course. Where the south side of the nave meets the tower, it projects slightly; the kneeler and coping here may be original. The plinth continues to the nave but stops after approximately one metre, with the rest of the south wall being much rebuilt in random rubble.

The nineteenth-century south porch is constructed of snecked stone (mostly volcanic) and is gabled, containing a narrow two-centred outer arch. The south nave has two largely original windows: to the left of the porch is a volcanic double lancet with each light having a trefoil head, with restored moulded reveals and low-arched head; to the right is a volcanic three-light window with ogee heads and an original hoodmould.

The chancel is slightly narrower and lower than the nave. Its south side has two square-headed lancets with trefoil heads and sunken spandrels, both little restored and constructed of volcanic ashlar. The east end of the chancel is largely a product of the 1878–1883 restoration, including sandstone kneelers, coping and apex cross, and a sandstone three-light Perpendicular-style window with hoodmould. The north side of the chancel is blind. The north front of the nave includes a primitive three-light volcanic ashlar Perpendicular window at its east end, featuring a flat-arched head with two vertical mullions and flat arches between, plus a hoodmould; this window is probably 17th century in date. The remainder of this wall was rebuilt blind in the nineteenth century with snecked stone.

Interior

The south porch has a nineteenth-century wagon roof with moulded ribs. The south doorway is a restored volcanic ashlar two-centred arch with chamfered surround, containing a restored fifteenth-century oak studded door with moulded cover strips. On the inside, the top original wrought-iron strap hinge with foliate fleur-de-lys finial and the original oak lock are preserved.

The nave and chancel have early twentieth-century roofs with cross-braced trusses. The high, almost round-headed plain tower arch is original to the fifteenth century. The ringing floor was rebuilt in the nineteenth century, and a fifteenth-century segmental-headed volcanic doorway leads to the tower stairs. A nineteenth-century gothic-style timber chancel arch dates from the 1878–1883 restoration.

The chancel floor has late seventeenth- to early eighteenth-century black and white marble flags set in a chequer pattern at the east end, and late nineteenth-century encaustic tiles under the altar. A Nottingham alabaster gothic-style reredos and altar of similar style, dated 1885, feature an alabaster top and carved timber gothic-style blind arcading across the front. Altar rails, stalls, lectern, pulpit (dated 1884) and tower screen are all late nineteenth-century gothic-style. Contemporary pews appear to have been made from sections of eighteenth-century pews.

The font is probably medieval, constructed of granite with a hollow-chamfered plinth, circular stem and octagonal bowl.

The north side of the nave contains a group of marble mural memorials to the Bellew family of nearby Stockleigh Court, notably the William Bellew memorial of 1789, which comprises a grey-black rectangular plaque flanked by white marble pilasters given a fluted effect by inlaid strips of coloured marble, with moulded caps enhanced with acanthus and a moulded entablature surmounted by a cartouche, and a lower apron from which crossed frond decoration has been removed. Other memorials include one to William Bellew (died 1772) in white and grey marble with cartouche on top, and another to William Bellew (died 1826), featuring a rectangular marble plaque with a carved Beerstone gothic-style surround with ogee-headed arch and crocketted finials. Over the south door are worn painted arms to one of the early Kings George.