Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

A church of early 16th-century date, probably completed in 1534 and built at the expense of Anthony Catesby. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with lead roofs and comprises a chancel, aisled nave, south porch and west tower, all executed in the Perpendicular style.

The chancel consists of a single bay with a five-light east window. The aisles contain three-light windows to their east and west ends and four-light windows to the sides. The south doorway is hollow-chamfered and wave-moulded, set within a shallow porch with a 19th-century panelled door. The porch features attached shafts to the doorway with a wave-moulded arch, shields in stylized foliage to the spandrels, a wave-moulded rectangular surround and hood mould. The porch itself is battlemented and contains a panelled stone vault.

The three-stage tower is faced chiefly with ironstone ashlar with bands and dressings of limestone. It has a many-moulded west doorway with attached shafts and a three-light window above with hood mould. Quatrefoil windows to the middle stage north and south have moulded lozenge surrounds. Paired bell-chamber openings of two-lights with transom feature traceried spandrels and a single hood mould to each pair. Clasping buttresses, set back to the bell-chamber stage, then support pairs of tall square pinnacles set diagonally. A quatrefoil frieze sits above the moulded plinth, with a frieze of cusped lozenges below the bell-chamber stage. The panelled battlemented parapet has a corbel frieze and large gargoyles to the centre of the sides—two monkeys to the south and a bearded woolcomber to the east. The body of the church has offset buttresses to the bays and diagonal offset buttresses to the chancel, with battlemented parapets. Some original polygonal battlemented lead rainwater heads survive. Windows to the aisles, chancel and above the west door have four-centred heads with similar Perpendicular tracery and hood moulds.

The interior is planned as a hall church with no clerestory or chancel arch. The nave has four-bay arcades with piers featuring high moulded bases to clear pews and a four-shafts-four-hollows section, moulded capitals and double wave-moulded arches. Shafts on angel corbels carry the roof principals and feature traceried spandrels with shields. The original roofs are of fine quality, with carved wall plates displaying leaf trail and scroll decoration, similar decoration to the principals, many-moulded ridge pieces and purlins, stop-moulded rafters and carved bosses.

The octagonal font has a panelled stem and shields in quatrefoils to the bowl. The oak font cover, probably of mid-17th-century date, has five twisted balusters supporting a pyramidal top. Several groups of benches are substantially original with square tops and thin buttress-shafts. Wrought-iron candle-holders to the benches with flowers date to around 1890. A mid-18th-century communion rail features column-on-vase balusters. The communion table of similar date has cabriole legs. A late 19th-century reredos of oak with high-relief carving of the Last Supper stands in the chancel. The vestry contains an 18th-century reredos with round-arched Commandment boards. Three funeral hatchments to members of the Irby family are displayed as oil on canvas, along with the Royal Arms of George II, also in oil on canvas. Nineteenth-century stained-glass windows occupy the east and west positions.

The church contains several significant monuments. A standing wall monument to Thomas Catesby, the last of his line, who died in 1699 and was commemorated in 1700, features various marbles with busts of him and his wife on a base showing a relief of three kneeling daughters, a small child with a skull and a baby in swaddling clothes. A slate inscription panel bearing Catesby lineage has a round-arched surround with black marble console keyblock and is flanked by veined marble Ionic columns supporting a pediment with a cartouche of arms. A standing wall monument to William Irby, 1st Baron Boston, who died in 1775 and was created by Nollekens, features various marbles with a mourning female figure leaning on an urn and holding an extinguished torch, set against an obelisk background. A wall monument to Mary Irby, who died in 1792, also by Nollekens, shows a weeping cherub by an urn. A wall monument in Grecian style to Edward Irby, who died in 1805, bears a trophy of arms to the base and is signed by J. de Vaeri, London. A wall monument to Frederick, 2nd Baron Boston, by W. Pitts shows a relief of a praying family with an ascending angel. Several simpler wall monuments to members of the Irby family date to the early 19th century and later.