Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St. Mary the Virgin

Church dating from the 13th to 15th centuries, altered in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The body of the church was rebuilt in 1873 and otherwise restored by Charles Buckeridge at a cost of £3,000. The building is constructed of coursed ironstone rubble and coursed squared ironstone with ironstone and limestone dressings, with plain-tile and lead roofs.

The church comprises a chancel, organ chamber and vestry, aisled nave, south porch, and west tower.

The 3-bay chancel features a 3-light east window with 19th-century reticulated tracery, a 2-light window to the north with 19th-century Decorated tracery, and a pair of similar windows to the south, all with hood moulds. Diagonal off-set buttresses support the walls, and the east gable has a stone cope with kneelers. The 19th-century vestry and organ chamber continues along the north aisle and has 3-light windows to the east and north, both with hood moulds and straight heads.

The nave has a 3-bay clerestory of 1873 with 2-light windows featuring straight heads and hood moulds, and a plain stone-coped parapet. The aisles contain 2-light windows with 19th-century Decorated style tracery, except for the 3-light east window to the south aisle which has 19th-century intersecting tracery; all windows have hood moulds and plain stone-coped parapets. The south aisle overlaps the chancel.

A south door of approximately 1200 features one order of shafts with leaf-crocket capitals, moulded imposts, and a round arch with two flat steps; the stonework to the arch alternates between limestone and ironstone. The south porch has a doorway with 2 orders of polygonal shafts, moulded capitals, and a triple-chamfered arch.

The west tower is divided into 3 stages. The lowest stage features off-set angle buttresses and a quatrefoil frieze of limestone at the base of the battlemented parapet. Paired 19th-century cusped 1-light windows with hood moulds occupy the west face, with a chamfered lancet window to the north side of the next stage. The 13th-century former bell-chamber stage has 5 blank arches to each side with round shafts and blocked chamfered lancet windows flanking a central blank arch. The 15th-century top stage features 2-light bell-chamber openings with Decorated tracery and hood moulds.

Interior

The chancel contains 2-seat sedilia grouped with a piscina, featuring ogee-arched heads to the arches and trefoils to the spandrels. Double-chamfered arches open into former north and south chancel chapels with polygonal responds, as does the similar chancel arch.

The nave has 3-bay arcades, probably both of 1873, with octagonal piers, polygonal responds, and double-chamfered arches. A triple-chamfered tower arch spans the entrance to the tower.

The font has a circular bowl with flat attached shafts carrying rough single-scallop capitals, supported by four octagonal colonnettes around a central bar with a stop-chamfered support.

The interior also contains an 18th-century charity board and 3 stalls in the chancel, possibly continental in origin, featuring winged lion arms and lion's feet. A 19th-century reredos with terracotta panels is positioned behind the altar. The chancel features 19th-century stained-glass windows, with the east window executed by Clayton & Bell around 1873.

A wall monument of coloured marbles commemorates William Ward (died 1737), his wife Bridget (died 1735), and their 7 children. Erected in 1775 by their two surviving daughters Mary and Dorothy, it was designed by William Cox of Northampton and features an apron, obelisk background, cartouche of arms, and lamp finials.