Church of St Mary is a Grade II listed building in the North Yorkshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 22 August 1966. Church.

Church of St Mary

WRENN ID
quartered-bracket-mist
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
North Yorkshire
Constituency
Thirsk and Malton MP: Kevin Hollinrake (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
22 August 1966
Type
Church
Address
Church of St Mary, Thornton Watlass
OS grid reference
SE 232 853
Coordinates
54.26284, -1.64466
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Mary is a Grade II listed building located in Thornton Watlass. It dates from the 15th century, with significant alterations made in the mid to late 19th century, likely by G Fowler Jones. The church features a west tower, a nave with a south porch, a north aisle, transepts, and a chancel. It is constructed from rubblestone, ashlar, limestone, and sandstone, topped with a Welsh slate roof.

The tower is designed in the 15th-century Perpendicular style and consists of four stages. It has offset clasping buttresses, with a stair tower located in the southeast buttress that includes chamfered lights. The second stage features a trefoil-headed single-light window, while the third stage has a pointed-arched single-light window. The belfry is adorned with three single-light trefoil-headed windows, each set in a double-chamfered surround with a flat lintel above. The tower is capped with a corbelled cornice, an embattled parapet, and pinnacles at each corner.

The remainder of the church, built in the 19th century, is designed in the Geometrical style and includes pointed-arch windows. The nave has two 2-light windows with hoodmoulds, and the south porch features a board double-door set within a pointed-arch surround, flanked by angle buttresses. The transepts contain a three-light window with a hoodmould, while the chancel has three single-light cusped windows and diagonal buttresses at the east end. The gables are finished with stone coping and crosses. The east window consists of three lights, with the central light being taller, all featuring trefoil tracery and circles in the heads of the arches, along with hoodmoulds.

Inside, the tower boasts a quadripartite rib-vault with sunk quadrant moulding.

Local climate

Church of St Mary receives an average of 830 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 54% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 70% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 46 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 87% of listed buildings. Of these, 25 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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