Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Grafton Regis

A church of early 13th-century, 14th-century and 15th-century date, repaired and re-pewed in 1840 and restored in 1889. The building is constructed of coursed squared limestone with a slate roof to the nave and lead roofs to the chancel, tower and porch. It comprises a chancel, north chancel chapel, nave with north aisle, south porch and west tower.

The chancel is of 3 bays and contains a 5-light east window with renewed Perpendicular tracery and hood mould. To the north-east is a 2-light window with straight head, and to the south are a pair of 2-light Perpendicular windows with ogee-arched lights and hood moulds. A blocked window sits above a double wave-moulded priest's door with ogee-arched head; the sill of the south-west window was formerly lower than that to the south-east and has been partly blocked. The north chancel chapel continues the line of the north aisle and features a 3-light window with reticulated tracery. The north aisle has 2-light windows to the north with Decorated tracery and a 3-light west window with intersecting tracery, all with hood moulds.

The nave contains square clerestory windows to the north-east and south-east, the former with a double-chamfered stone surround and the latter with a hollow-chamfered surround and quatrefoil. To the south are 2-light windows with Decorated tracery and hood moulds. The south porch has a double wave-moulded door with hood mould and label stops, approached through a double-chamfered doorway with hood mould. Blocked windows flank either side of the porch, which contains stone benches and a roof with an innermost tie-beam dated 1835.

The 3-stage west tower has a polygonal stair turret to its south-east angle with an ogee-arched door, a small cusped 1-light window at intermediate level and a ridged stone roof. The middle stage has similar windows, the first stage has a 2-light west window with Decorated tracery and hood mould, and the bell-chamber has similar openings. The tower features diagonal off-set buttresses and a battlemented parapet. Similar diagonal off-set buttresses are present to the porch and the south-east angle of the nave. Both the nave and chancel have chamfered stone eaves with stone-coped gables and kneelers.

The interior of the chancel contains a stone reredos with ogee-arched blank arcading and a cusped ogee-arched piscina. The priest's door is flanked by sedilia forming a tripartite composition, all with ogee-arched heads. A double-chamfered arch leads to the chancel chapel, supported on corbels. The nave has a 4-bay arcade with circular piers, polygonal responds and double-chamfered arches. The tower arch is triple-chamfered with polygonal responds. A large medieval panel painting of the Betrayal of Christ hangs above the priest's door. The north aisle contains 19th-century stained-glass windows.

Among the monuments is a chest-tomb with trefoil-headed arched panels and three semi-octagonal colonnettes to the middle of the long side and either end, with shields to the panels at each end and a slab incised with two foliated crosses. A chest tomb dated to Sir John Wydevyl, c.1415, has seven ogee-headed arched panels, shields to the panels at each end and an incised slab. A wall monument in Grecian style signed by Flaxman commemorates Charlotte Countess of Euston (died 1808), with a sarcophagus flanked by figures of Faith and Hope. A wall monument to Lord James Henry Fitzroy (died 1834), signed by William Behnes, features a draped urn in a niche of a sarcophagus in white marble on a slate ground. Several other Fitzroy wall monuments of early to mid-19th century date are also present, executed in white marble on slate grounds.