Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a medieval church substantially rebuilt and extended during the nineteenth century, located on the south side of Main Street in Little Addington. The building dates from the late 13th and 14th centuries, with major 19th-century alterations and additions.

The church is constructed of squared and regularly coursed limestone, with the tower and spire built of limestone and ironstone banded ashlar. The roofs are covered with lead, plain tile, and Welsh slate. The plan comprises an aisled nave with four bays, a chancel, north and south porches, and a west tower.

The south elevation of the chancel features a low-side window to the far left with a transom and trefoil tracery; its lower part is blocked. The original south door has been converted to a window, and evidence of another blocked window remains to the right. The chancel has a slated gabled roof with ashlar gable parapets. At the abutment with the nave, the parapet follows the line of a gambrel. A 2-light east window displays reticulated tracery with carved label stops. Clasping buttresses occur at the right corner. On the north elevation, a 19th-century vestry is attached with a single-light east window and shallow gable roof with ashlar gable parapets.

The south aisle comprises four bays with a 3-window range. The far-right window is 3-light with reticulated tracery and carved label stops; two other 2-light windows have renewed Y-tracery. The lean-to roof has ashlar gable parapets. At the east end is a 3-light window with Y-tracery and a matching 2-light window to the west. A gabled porch sits in a bay left of centre, featuring a double chamfered outer arch with octagonal responds and a roll-moulded inner arch with two orders of shafts, beneath a plain tile roof.

The north aisle likewise has four bays with a 3-window range. The far-left window is 3-light beneath a 4-centred head; two further 2-light windows display Y-tracery and trefoil circle tracery respectively. The lean-to roof has ashlar parapets, and a 19th-century 2-light west window was inserted. The gabled porch positioned right of centre has a double chamfered outer arch with carved label stops and a moulded inner arch. Above the outer doorway is a blocked window to a former parvis room. The porch contains a quadripartite ribbed vault and plain tile roof. A partially legible tablet on the north aisle wall bears an early 18th-century date, probably recording a restoration.

The nave clerestory comprises three bays of 2-light square-head windows beneath a shallow gable roof with ashlar parapet.

The 14th-century west tower rises in three stages with 3-stage angle buttresses to the western corners of the lower two stages. The tower base is embraced by the aisles. The west doorway is notably fine, with a crocketted ogee head containing fragments of figures in the hollow moulding and flanking ribbed pinnacles. A 2-light window above displays mouchettes. The upper stage has 2-light bell-chamber openings with reticulated tracery set within a recessed wall panel. A corbelled parapet above carries a quatrefoil frieze, with gargoyles and the bases of ribbed pinnacles at the corners. An octagonal spire rises behind the parapet, adorned with two tiers of lucarnes.

Interior

The interior features a three-bay nave arcade of late 13th-century roll-moulded arches carried on quatrefoil piers with keeled shafts in the diagonals; the north and south sides differ in detail. The chancel arch is double chamfered with bracketed responds. The tower arch is tall with triple chamfering and continuous responds to the nave, with similar but smaller arches serving the aisles.

The 19th-century roof structures include a chancel roof with three trusses and decorated spandrels. A 19th-century moulded arch connects the chancel to the vestry and organ chamber. The original 3-light east window of the north aisle now screens the vestry from the aisle. A trefoil-head piscina occurs to the right, while the south aisle contains a double piscina with Y-tracery and shafts, together with an arch-head niche. The south aisle east and south-east windows have roll-moulded inner arches, one with label stops.

Fittings include a Perpendicular pulpit with tracery panels, a 14th-century screen with doors, and 19th-century painted tablets bearing the Ten Commandments flanking the chancel east window. Stained glass includes fragments of 14th-century glass in the north aisle north-east window, with 19th-century glass in the chancel east window and tower west window. An octagonal font dates from the 19th century.

Monuments comprise two illegible brass tablets to the Saunderson family in the vestry, with a tablet dated 1694 above commemorating Elizabeth Sanderson, featuring flanking scrolls and an arched cornice. Two further tablets of late 18th and early 19th-century date to the Gascoyen family are mounted in the south aisle.