Church Of St Werburgh

The Church of St Werburgh is a parish church dating to the 14th century, with substantial rebuilding in the 15th and early 16th centuries. It was restored in 1886. The church is constructed of slate rubble with granite dressings, and has a slate roof. It comprises a nave and a narrow north aisle under a single roof, with a chancel incorporated into the nave. A large five-light Perpendicular window illuminates the east side of the chancel. The south aisle’s east window is of three lights with panel and intersecting tracery. The south side of the south aisle features pebble-dash rendering and contains 15th-century three-light windows with straight heads and four-centred arch lights. The north aisle has two-light windows, one with ogee-headed lights. Moulded two-centred arches define the north and south doorways. A south porch features roll moulding to its four-centred arch doorway. The north transept gable was rebuilt in the late 19th century. The fine west tower has two stages with diagonal buttresses, set-offs, a moulded string, and an embattled parapet. A polygonal stair turret projects on the north side of the tower, also with battlements. Bell-openings are two-light, and a three-light Perpendicular window is set within a four-centred arch doorway with carved spandrels, placed in a deep moulded recess with a hood mould. The south side of the tower is roughcast. Internally, the south aisle runs almost the full length of the nave and chancel, featuring a five-bay arcade; the east bay is a smaller bay. The north aisle has a four-bay arcade. The arcade arches are moulded and four-centred, with monolithic granite piers each featuring four shafts and hollows, moulded capitals and bases. A double-chamfered tower arch has shafts to the responds, with moulded capitals. A doorway leading to the rood stairs is located within the south wall of the south aisle, and has an ogee head. A carved wagon roof, dating to around 1500, is found over the south aisle, complete with bosses and remnants of colour. A wagon roof to the south porch, also dating to around 1500, is decorated with bosses and has a nail-studded south door. Good 19th-century carved wagon roofs cover the nave and chancel, the latter being boarded. The church retains good 19th-century furnishings including a screen to the south chapel, choir stalls, bench ends, a pulpit, a lectern and a reredos. A framed canvas depicting the Royal Arms of 1812 is displayed. A large monument commemorates Sir John Hele (died 1608) and his family, featuring reclining, recumbent, seated, and kneeling figures. A further large monument is dedicated to Dame Elizabeth Narborough (died 1678), fashioned from black and white marble and featuring a sarcophagus supported by lions, surmounted by a kneeling figure of Lady Elizabeth, all within wrought iron railings. A wall monument is dedicated to Elizabeth Calmady (died 1694), and another to Dorothy Rider (died 1710), the date of which is mutilated and displaying an oval tablet over a winged scull.