Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

Anglican parish church of 13th-century origin, substantially restored and enlarged during the 19th century. The church has a chancel, nave with projecting south porch and north aisle, a vestry and organ chamber to the north of the chancel, and a west tower.

The building is constructed primarily of blue lias stone, with sandstone used for buttresses, the western face of the tower, and other structural elements. The porch is built of coursed squared and dressed limestone. The roof is covered in red tile and stone slate.

The chancel features sandstone buttresses and walls of blue lias. The south wall contains an early studded plank door in a pointed flat-chamfered opening, a 19th-century single light window with cinquefoil head and moulded hood, and a 19th-century three-light east window with reticulated tracery, moulded hood and head stops. An eroded monument is set in the lower left wall. The north aisle has clamp and diagonal buttresses, with a triangular east window with tracery and moulded hood, a two-light pointed 19th-century window below it, and a single light window matching that in the chancel south wall. Five two-light pointed 19th-century windows with tracery and a three-light pointed 19th-century west window with tracery light this aisle.

The three-stage 13th-century tower has massive diagonal buttresses and a projecting stair-vice with a plank door in a pointed flat-chamfered surround at its north-east corner. The west face displays a three-light Decorated window with reticulated tracery and a scroll-moulded hood with eroded carved-head stops. The second stage features trefoil-headed single lights. Two-light pointed belfry windows with Decorated tracery appear on each face of the tower.

The nave is buttressed and lit by two two-light 19th-century windows with tracery on either side of the projecting porch, and a four-light 19th-century double-chamfered rectangular window with Perpendicular-style tracery and stopped hoods towards the east end. The porch is buttressed with a double door featuring pierced decoration and a hood with head stops, with a flag floor within. A plank door connects the porch to the nave, set within a flat-chamfered Tudor-arched surround. Above this door is an eroded 12th-century hood with segmental section forming an arc, decorated with beast-head stops and roundels linked by beaded bands with beaded outlines, and a grotesque-head keystone.

The interior is plastered. The nave has a five-bay 19th-century arcade with pointed arches on octagonal piers. A 13th-century double-chamfered tower arch without capitals spans the entry. A cusped 19th-century timber chancel arch is supported on large stone corbels carved with figures of St Peter and St John. A 19th-century segmental-pointed archway leads from the chancel into the organ chamber with a heavily moulded surround of two orders; the inner order rises from large stone corbels decorated with carved angels. A trefoil-headed 19th-century piscina is set in the wall to the right of the altar. Remnants of a lancet window head or possibly another piscina are set low in the south wall of the chancel near the pulpit. A tall pointed arch at the east end of the north aisle features tracery in its upper part, forming a segmental-pointed arch below, with a hood topped by a large angel-figure stop. The nave roof is plastered, the chancel has a 19th-century panelled roof, and the north aisle has a 19th-century arch-braced roof. Red and black tiling is laid in the nave, with decorative encaustic tiling forming lattice patterns in the chancel.

Church fittings include a 19th-century octagonal alabaster font opposite the entrance, decorated with biblical scenes and symbols of the apostles set in roundels on each face. A circular stone pulpit designed by J. Middleton stands in the south-east corner of the nave, decorated with fretwork of flowers in square outlines and circular roundels with carved heads. The stone mensa dates to around 1300 and bears three consecration crosses and flat-chamfered stone legs. A fine 19th-century carved stone dossal, probably by Nichols, depicts Christ crucified at the centre with four saints on either side. It replaces an earlier pokerwork dossal of around 1845 by Rev W. Calvert, which depicted Christ and two disciples within an ogee-arched frame with pinnacles and now hangs to the right of the south door. An alms box also by Calvert is positioned to the left of the door. The pews are 19th-century, with reused 15th-century linenfold panels incorporated into pews at the west end of the nave.

The chancel contains a limestone ledger in front of the mensa inscribed in capitals to an unidentified son of John Underhill, who died in 1647. Two further ledgers commemorate Charles Dowdeswell of Forthampton Court, died 1647, positioned to the right and left of the mensa. The south wall holds five marble monuments to members of the Yorke family, dated 1791–1830. On the north wall stands an 18th-century monument with an eroded inscription and barley-twist columns with Corinthian capitals, topped by a broken segmental pediment with a heraldic shield at its centre and a winged cherub face at the base. Five ledgers line the centre of the aisle, including one to Hopewell Hayward, died 1722, with a heraldic shield at the top, another to Maria Hayward, his wife, died 1746, and others to members of the Hayward family. A monument above a pier of the aisle arcade commemorates John Raiseil, died 1631, finely carved in blue lias with gold lettering inscription and a depiction of a recumbent skeleton below. Narrow panels flank the skeleton, decorated with hanging ribbon work incorporating skull and cross-bones, with moulded capping topped by painted scrollwork.

The base of the tower contains a painted royal coat of arms and rules governing ringers' conduct in the belfry, dated 1858, alongside a large wooden board describing lands and premises obtained by the governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, aided by Isaac Maddox, Lord Bishop of Worcester, and the Honourable James Yorke, for augmenting poor livings in England and Wales.

The church was restored in 1788 and the north aisle was added. Major restoration and alteration work took place in 1847–48 by the architects Hamilton and Medland of Gloucester. William Burges undertook further alterations between 1863 and 1866. The chancel was restored in 1869 by J. Middleton of Cheltenham.