Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a parish church dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, with significant alterations and rebuilding in the 15th, 16th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The West tower was rebuilt in the mid-15th century, and the South aisle in the late 15th century. A North aisle and porch were constructed around 1536, and a North chapel between 1531 and 1534. The church was restored circa 1820-1821 by Richard Carver, with later work by C.E. Giles under the direction of James Babbage. It is built of red sandstone rubble, with squared and coursed stone on the vestry and chancel, and has slate roofs with coped verges.

The church comprises a West tower, a clerestoried four-bay nave, North and South aisles, a North porch, a chancel with a North chapel, and a South vestry with an organ chamber. The crenellated three-stage West tower has diagonal buttresses, gargoyles, two-light louvred bell openings, a clock face on the West front, a three-light West window, a moulded arched West door, and an octagonal crenellated stair turret in the Northwest corner. The South aisle has a two-light window at the West end, similar two-light windows in the outer bays flanking two gabled projections with quatrefoil openings, and a two-light East window. A 13th-century hexagonal coffin lid with a raised cross is inset into the South side of the East end of the aisle. A trefoil-headed lancet lights the rood loft. The South aisle incorporates a 19th-century arched door and a two-light window to the vestry, a lancet to the chancel, and a three-light East window, all dating from the 19th century. The North chapel has a four-light, cinquefoil-headed, hollow-chamfered mullioned window under a hood mould at its East end, with stepped buttresses to the East and North fronts. The North front of the church features similar three- and two-light mullioned windows, with four-light windows flanking a gabled, single-story porch. The porch has a moulded arched entrance, an open wagon roof, a moulded four-centred arch doorway with 19th-century decorative spandrels, a 19th-century door, and a three-light window at the West end. A three-light window is located at the West end of the North aisle.

Internally, the church is rendered. It features Victorian open timber roofs, except for a 16th-century wagon roof vault in the South aisle. The chancel arch is Victorian, and the tower arch is chamfered in three orders. Standard Perpendicular arcades are present, with foliage capitals, along with a similar two-bay arcade between the chancel and chapel. Norman-style two-light clerestory windows illuminate the nave. Recesses with rib vaulting and corbel heads are found in the South aisle, containing effigies presumed to be of Sir John Ralegh and his first wife Maud, dating to the mid-14th century, and another of a chain mail knight from around 1260, all reset in the 19th century. There is a black and white marble wall tablet dedicated to Lady Trevelyan, who died in 1697, and another by T King of Bath to John Oatway, depicting a sorrowing figure beside an urn. A tomb slab commemorates John Trevelyan, who died in 1623. A large tomb slab against the West tower wall commemorates Richard Musgrave, who died in 1686, with fine lettering. A screen at the West end, dated 1848, is accompanied by a gallery with reset 16th-century panelling. A four-bay rood screen, dating from the late 15th century and restored in the 19th century, is also present. The church also features a good, late 15th-century, octagonal font carved with depictions of the Seven Sacraments, some 16th-century bench ends, a pre-Reformation altar slab, and a late 17th-century carved pedestal pulpit, in addition to stained glass from the 17th century.