Church Of St Edmund

The Church of St Edmund is a parish church dating to the 15th century, with significant restoration work carried out in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. The structure is built of coursed rubble stone with lead roofs and is in the Perpendicular style. It comprises a west tower, a nave, north and south porches, and a chancel with an 1882 vestry to the south.

The west tower has three stages with diagonal, offset buttresses, and a projecting stair turret to the northwest. The west side features a moulded doorway set beneath a battlemented canopy supported by fan tracery, above which is a four-light window. Recessed paired lights are located through the top two stages, incorporating broad triangular mullions to the centre and an elaborately cusped single arch above. A battlemented parapet tops the tower. The nave has a parapet, offset buttresses, and three bays of large, transomed three-light windows. The north porch is topped with a battlemented parapet featuring trefoiled panels, buttresses, and corner gargoyles. The doorway has a 1637 door with carved panels and turned baluster ornament to the tympanum and lintel.

Inside, the nave incorporates two bays of fan vaulting on slim shafts, stone seats, and a 15th-century door with carved panels in a double-moulded arch, the outer arch being cusped. The south porch has a plain parapet with a small central ogee niche and a moulded doorway featuring carved angel heads as label stops, and is also fan vaulted. The chancel’s eastern wall contains a wide five-light window, with three-light windows to the north and south. A small moulded doorway and a two-light window are also found on the north side.

The tower's interior features fan vaulting supported by carved angel corbels. The nave also has mullions continued below the windows to form wall panels, stone seats, and tall recessed panels above the doors. Tall, moulded pointed arches lead to the tower and chancel. The original roof, restored, includes moulded beams, traceried spandrels, and carved bosses. The chancel mirrors these features. To the south wall are triple sedilia, with a much-restored elaborate canopy featuring ogee arches, finials, and a painting of the Last Supper on the rear wall. A 12th-century font with scalloped ornament is also present. A 15th-century screen with traceried panels and carved half-figures of angels at each end divides the space. The altar table, dated 1623, has elaborately carved cup-and-cover legs. An 18th-century bread box completes the furnishings. Some original glass remains in the top tracery panels of the east and west windows. Remaining glass and fittings date to the 19th century. A 17th-century painted cartouche above the north door commemorates two daughters of Lord Peovre as founders of the church. Brass memorials to the same family were replaced in 1890. A marble wall monument to Edward and Penelope Bate, dated 1717, is located in the chancel and features Corinthian columns and a segmental pediment.