Church Of St Martin De Tours

Church of St Martin de Tours

This Anglican church dates from the 14th and 15th centuries and was restored in 1873 by John Middleton for the Rector G.G. Coventry, as indicated by an inscription over the entrance.

The church comprises a nave with south porch, a short passage on the north linking the chancel to the vestry, and a west tower. The nave is constructed of random ashlar, while the chancel is built of random ashlar and random squared and dressed limestone. The tower is ashlar with a stone slate roof.

The south wall of the nave contains buttresses with offsets at the east and west ends. A 4-light Perpendicular window with hollow-moulded mullions and trefoil heads sits within a Tudor-arched surround to the right of the porch. The porch itself is a late 19th-century addition featuring diagonal buttresses and a moulded Tudor-arched entrance with moulded hood and large foliate stops. Within the porch are double 19th-century plank doors with decorative hinges in a moulded Tudor-arched surround. Above the porch entrance is a quatrefoil containing the monogram "Ihs", a sundial with metal gnomon, and rectangular windows with tracery on the return walls.

The north wall of the nave has three buttresses with offsets and two 19th-century Decorated two-light windows with moulded hoods featuring 4-petal flowers at intervals and large carved head stops.

The chancel has diagonal buttresses. Its south wall contains a 3-light late Perpendicular window with trefoil-headed lights and carved spandrels within a deeply splayed Tudor-arched surround, and a similar 2-light window with geometric tracery at the top. A 3-light 14th-century east window features reticulated tracery with moulded hood and carved head stops. A 19th-century 2-light window similar to the south side window contains a reused quoin with a mass dial. The vestry, dated 1975, has 2 and 3-light stone-mullioned casements.

The 15th-century two-stage tower has diagonal buttresses and a moulded plinth. A clock is located on the south side. Two-light stone-mullioned Tudor-arched belfry windows have wooden louvres. The tower features a battlemented parapet with moulded string and grotesques at each corner. Flat coping surmounts the gable ends, where bases of ornate finials remain, though the finials themselves have been lost from the gable ends of both nave and chancel.

The church interior has been scraped. The nave retains a 19th-century four-bay arch-braced roof supported on stone corbels with foliate decoration. Trefoil-headed wooden arcading sits above the wall plate, with double purlins linked by panels decorated with quatrefoils. The chancel has a 19th-century panelled Tudor-arched roof with two large 19th-century angel corbels. The floor is flagged.

A 17th-century chancel arch with moulded imposts features a deeply chamfered pointed arch with moulded imposts. An early plank door with fillets sits within a Tudor-arched surround to the right of the tower arch. Traces of the former 14th-century nave arcade, comprising three blocked pointed arches (one with an impost), remain visible within the nave north wall.

To the right of the altar is a large mutilated image niche with a projecting base for an image decorated with vine scrollwork, crocketing, and pilasters on either side—one of which still rises to form a crocketed pinnacle. The canopy, once featuring lierne vaulting, a Tudor rose, and a central pinnacle, is now broken. A smaller mutilated image niche to the left of the altar formerly had a crocketed canopy.

An octagonal late 14th-century limestone font stands inside the south door. The church contains 19th-century pews, pulpit, and communion rails. A mid-17th-century priest's chair, possibly made from a Puritan Communion table from Deerhurst, sits near the font. A simple late 19th or early 20th-century altar table and a late 17th-century chair with lozenge decoration are positioned within the sanctuary.

The monuments include a segmental-headed slatestone monument to Mrs. Elizabeth Bishop, wife of Revd. Bishop (died 1765), positioned to the left of the tower arch with the inscription "NEAR THE FONT" at the top. A small ledger to Revd. Bishop (died 1766) is located near the font. A white and grey marble monument to Revd. Luders (died 1851) is on the south wall of the chancel. A recumbent effigy of a priest in eucharistic garments lies to the left of the altar. A ledger to John Roberts the elder, husband of Katherin Roberts (died 1650), features a double heart motif at the bottom of the inscription. A further inscription below records John Roberts, son of John Roberts (died 1682). A 19th-century stained glass east window is dedicated to Gilbert Coventry, Rector (died 1906).