Church Of St Mary

Church of St. Mary

This is an Anglican parish church in the village of Batsford, rebuilt by W.F. Poulton and Woodman of Reading between 1861 and 1862. It is constructed in ashlar limestone and has been reroofed with concrete tiles in the 20th century. The building is designed in the Neo-Norman Gothic style.

The plan comprises a nave with a three-stage south-west tower and spire; a polygonal access turret on the east side in the angle with the nave; an outshut housing the organ on the north of the nave towards the chancel; and an apsidal chancel with a vestry outshut on the north, attached to the organ outshut.

The nave has buttressed walls on the north, south and west sides. On the south there are three 2-light, round-headed, stone-mullioned casement windows set back from the wall face and spanned externally by round-headed arches with neo-Norman decoration and flanking colonnettes. The hoods feature foliate stops. The windows on the north are of similar but simpler design, flush with the wall face. The 3-light west window is in the neo-Norman style with a taller central light and hood following the line of the window heads.

The apse contains single-light, round-headed stone casements with chevron decoration, flanked by engaged colonnettes. The hoods match those over the nave windows. Both nave and chancel have a continuous corbel table with neo-Norman decoration and a projecting plinth that continues around the tower.

The south-west tower and spire feature an octagonal drum within four large pinnacles and a cyclopean gabled spire with lights of French Romanesque character. The spire is ribbed. Small round-headed single lights pierce the tower and polygonal access turret. The south and west faces of the tower contain large 2-light neo-Norman style windows lighting the third stage, with engaged colonnettes and hood moulds. Highly decorated quatrefoils appear below. A round-headed, plank door with ornate hinges sits within a round-headed arch with neo-Norman decoration in the west wall of the tower, with a gable above flanked by square buttresses.

The interior features a simple nave with a round-headed arch of three orders leading to the chancel, and a round-headed arch to the organ outshut off the chancel. Both arches are decorated in the neo-Norman style. The nave roof has collar and scissor trusses arranged alternately. A step rises to the chancel, which has a blind wall arcade partially pierced by windows. Arcading at the east end features chip-carved margins to the panels within. A ribbed ashlar tunnel vault with incised zig-zag decoration covers the chancel. Stone flags pave all floors.

The fittings include a circular limestone font with three marble columns around the pedestal at the west end, and a limestone pulpit in the south-east corner of the nave with blind arcading and marble columns. The church retains 19th-century pews and an arcaded enclosure for a family pew at the west end of the nave. An arcaded altar rail is executed in a similar style. All woodwork is treated to resemble masonry, frequently incorporating nail-head decoration. Stained glass by Kempe dating from 1888 to 1898 appears in the window adjacent to the pulpit and in all chancel windows. Three circular candelabras in the Arts and Crafts style, four wall-hung candle holders in the same style, and four similar examples on the chancel walls are also present.

The church contains several monuments. A mid-18th-century white marble tablet to Sarah White is set within the porch wall. On the nave south wall are a 19th-century marble tablet; an 18th-century decorative marble tablet with open pediment and urn above to Elizabeth Revelry; and an 18th-century decorative marble tablet with cupids to the Right Honourable Richard Freeman, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. On the north wall are a 19th-century marble tablet depicting an angel by Boehm to John Freeman-Mitford; an early 19th-century marble monument with free-standing Ionic columns and triangular pediment with urn at apex to Thomas Freeman; and a 19th-century marble coffin lid set in the floor with a foliated cross on a gold mosaic background, possibly by Sir George Gilbert Scott.