Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

Anglican parish church of the 13th century and later. The building is constructed of ham stone rubble with ashlar dressings, with Welsh slate roofs featuring stepped coped gables and a stone slate base course to the chancel.

The church follows a three-cell plan comprising a 2-bay chancel, 3-bay nave, and a single-bay south transept, with additions of a north-east vestry, south porch, and west tower.

The chancel dates from the 14th century. It has a simple plinth with no buttresses. The east wall contains a triple-lancet window with plate tracery and a 19th-century label. On the south side is a 2-light window with plate tracery and a stairlight above it, with a blocked pointed-arched doorway in a projection to its left. The north wall has a 2-light cusped lancet window without a label. The north-east vestry, adjoining the chancel, has a similar 2-light cusped lancet window in its north wall and a small pointed-arched east doorway.

The south transept has a plinth and angled corner buttresses. Its east wall contains two 2-light windows of late 14th-century traceried design, while the west wall has one such window. The south wall has a 3-light window of Geometric tracery in a somewhat rural pattern.

The nave has 15th-century windows on its south side. To the east of the porch stands a 3-light traceried window set in a hollowed pointed-arched recess. The north wall contains a 2-light window with a flat arch in a moulded recess, executed in an earlier pattern than that on the south wall. East of this is a projection marking the former rood stair, with possibly an earlier effigy recess below it. At the centre of the north wall is a blocked pointed-arched doorway.

The south porch features a simple wave-moulded pointed arch externally with a 19th-century wrought-iron gate, and a matching inner arch with a 19th-century door. Inside are bench seats and a pitched stone vault ceiling; a small blocked window exists in the east wall.

The west tower is arranged in two stages, with a plinth and angled corner buttresses to the west, a string course, and battlemented parapets. An octagonal-plan stair turret with an outside door on its north-east corner projects from the tower. There is no west door, but a 3-light west window matches that in the south-east corner of the nave, with its label extending into the stage above. The south side of the lower stage has a single cusped lancet, while at higher level each face displays a 2-light 15th-century window.

The interior combines 19th and 20th-century work with original details. The chancel has a timber rib and panel ceiling with cinquefoil and trefoil rere-arches to the east and south-east windows respectively, and a panelled 15th-century chancel arch. The south transept features a shallower-pitched arched-braced collar truss roof with side shafts. All windows have rere-arches; that to the south window displays open cinquefoil cusps. A double 14th-century archway connects the transept to both the nave and chancel, with the centre column integral to the chancel arch jamb; above is a quatrefoil panel in the nave wall. The nave has a ceiling of 1910. The tall 15th-century tower arch is decorated with shafts and hollows.

Fittings include a 17th-century altar table and a 13th-century tub font with moulded turned base and broaches to the corners of the square plinth, the bowl decorated with stiff-leaf ornament. A trefoil-cusped piscina with corbel to the basin sits in the transept. An effigy recess in the south nave wall, cinquefoil in form and probably of the early 14th century, contains the effigy of a woman, possibly the wife of William of Ostricier, Lord of the Manor from 1272 to 1307, positioned on the cill of the south window to the transept. Below this is a double tablet memorial to Nicholas Jeffrey Senior (died 1685) and other family members. A bequest board dated 1795 hangs on the north wall of the tower, and a Charles II hatchment dated 1664 is positioned over the south doorway.

The first recorded rector dates to 1321. The church was declared redundant and passed into the care of the Redundant Churches Fund in November 1973.