Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is an Anglican parish church located on Manor Road in Cossington. It dates from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries and underwent significant restoration in 1900. The building is constructed from coursed and squared rubble with slate roofs, featuring coped verges adorned with cruciform finials. The church comprises a nave, chancel, south porch, and west tower, predominantly in the Perpendicular style.

The west tower is three stages high and embattled, supported by diagonal buttresses and a polygonal stair turret. It has 2-light bell chamber windows with louvres, two 2-light windows at the ringing chamber stage (one blank and one glazed), and a 3-light west window. The blocked west doorway features a 4-centred arch head with floral decorations in the spandrels and a stopped label with figures of angels. The nave has three bays with 3-light windows, including a high set 3-light window on the east gable face, and two buttresses, likely from the 1900 restoration, on the north wall.

The buttressed south porch has a moulded 14th-century outer opening, a sundial above, and paired panelled doors. Inside, it features a flagstone floor with benches and a moulded inner door opening, above which is a niche that once held a statue. The chancel is two bays long, with paired lancet windows to the south and 13th-century rere-arches. The north wall retains the remains of a small 13th-century window and includes a priest's door and a 3-light east window. There is also an early 19th-century memorial tablet set into the south wall.

The interior features a scraped nave and a plastered chancel with flagstone floors. Both the nave and chancel have wagon roofs with ribs and bosses. The tower arch is moulded, with a lancet ringing chamber window above, and there is a simple chancel arch. Remains of a south transept arch are also visible. The chancel contains a 13th-century tomb recess with a cinquefoil head, a slender 15th-century font with quatrefoil panels, and a Jacobean coffin stool. The church has 19th-century pews, a pulpit, decalogue plaques, and a reredos, along with numerous 18th and 19th-century wall monuments, notably one over the south door of the nave. An 18th-century alms box is present, as well as four stained glass windows from the mid to late 19th century, a fragment of medieval glass in the south window of the nave, and the remaining windows featuring plain leaded lights. Two brasses commemorating John Brent and his wife, who died in 1524, are set into the chancel floor.