Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church dating from the 15th century, featuring a nave and an inner chancel, with an outer chancel added and the tower rebuilt in the mid-19th century. The church is constructed of local stone coursed rubble for the 19th-century work, while the earlier parts are roughcast. It has three separate slate roofs without coped verges and decorative ridge tiles. The structure includes a west tower, a three-bay nave, a one-bay inner chancel, and a one-bay outer chancel. The tower is crenellated and consists of three stages, is unbuttressed, and features string courses, a single light louvred bell opening, and a two-light west window under a square hoodmould and pointed relieving arch. The west door is pointed arch, and there are three 19th-century wooden mullioned windows in the nave, a lancet window in the inner chancel, an unlit south side, a mullioned and transomed two-light east window, a two-light window on the north wall of the outer chancel, and a trefoil-headed lancet in the inner chancel. The nave is unlit. There is a gabled single-storey porch with a semi-circular headed opening and an inner chamfered pointed arch wooden doorway, possibly from the 16th century, with a 19th-century door.

Inside, the church is rendered and lacks a chancel arch. The bosses from the roof are reset on a cambered beam in the inner chancel, and there is an unmoulded pointed tower arch. The nave and inner chancel have a barrel vault, while the outer chancel roof is from the 19th century. A Norman circular font is present, along with 18th-century box pews, a reader's desk, and a pulpit. An unusual piscina shaped like a man's head clasped between two hands, possibly from the 15th century, can be found here. There is a notable collection of painted 18th-century slate tablets dedicated to the Spurry family, and the Ten Commandments are painted on two wooden boards. An unusual painted wooden panel inscribed "Peter Spurrye, Churchwarden 1718" is thought to represent Moses. R D Blackmore's grandfather served as rector here from 1809 to 1842, and the church attracts many visitors as the setting for the marriage of Jan Ridd in Blackmore's novel "Lorna Doone."