Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is an Anglican parish church located in Woodleigh village centre. The church's basic plan dates to the 14th century, but it was substantially rebuilt after a fire in 1649 and extensively restored in 1891. Constructed primarily from slatestone with granite dressings, the church has a slate roof with clay ridges.

The building comprises a west tower, a nave, north and south transepts, a south porch, and a chancel. The unbuttressed tower has two stages with a slight offset and a 19th-century embattled parapet supported by a corbel table. A double-chamfered arch provides access to a 19th-century door beneath a three-light 19th-century Perpendicular window. The south and north faces of the tower feature slits in the lower stage, while the bell stage has a shouldered, louvred light on each face. The south side of the nave has a 19th-century three-light window and a 14th-century three-light incusped window, flanking a gabled porch with an apex cross and a 1707 slate sundial above a plain round-arched doorway, which has a pointed inner doorway with remnants of a wave mould. The nave’s roof is arch-braced with moulded purlins. The nave also has a chamfered granite eaves course. The south transept displays a three-light window with a rounded head and a square stopped hood mould; above it, a recessed slate slab bears the inscription "R 1647 C," with a slit window above. The east wall of the south transept has a three-light incusped window with a flat arch, similar to those in the nave. The chancel, with a lower roofline and no gable coping, has a three-light cusped window; the east end, featuring angle buttresses in two offsets, contains a three-light C19 Perpendicular window beneath a stone consecration panel dated AD 1891. A two-light window with a square head is located on the chancel's north side. The north transept is rendered and features an 1891 doorway, a three-light Perpendicular window, and a small cusped light set low. The north wall of the nave is plain and the building is set into a hillside on that side. A stack rises from the ridge of the north transept.

Inside, the tower is unplastered. The nave has a tiled floor, plain walls, hollow-moulded rere-arches to the windows, and a 19th-century ceiled barrel roof. A low, unmoulded pointed arch leads to the south transept, which has a wood block floor, a 19th-century barrel roof, and plain walls. A higher plain arch connects to the north transept, which has a partly tiled floor and a barrel ceiling, and is accessed through a granite segmental arch. The chancel is raised one step, features tiled flooring and plain walls, and incorporates a pointed ceiled barrel. Four marble steps lead to the altar, which includes a dossal. The church contains an octagonal Transitional font with a granite bowl, featuring two pointed sunk panels on each face; 19th-century benches, an Eagle lectern, a pulpit, and a granite base; five wall monuments; and seven suspended oil lamps. The south transept contains a carved wooden altar from the early 20th century. In the chancel is a 19th-century piscina and a 14th-century Easter Sepulchre used as an enclosure for a monument to Sir Thomas Smyth, Rector, 1492-1527. The monument includes a chest in an ogee-arched recess, with figures of St Peter and St Paul below four mutilated figures, and a scroll bearing an abbreviated Latin inscription. The altar is flanked by panels depicting the Decalogue rendered in detailed 19th-century artwork; alongside a faience panel in an alabaster surround, dated 1898, depicting Zoe Irene Sutherland Sands. A white marble tablet from 1850 is also present, along with suspended oil lamps, and modern electric lighting.