Church of St Mary, Pennard

Church of St Mary, Pennard

This is a rubble-stone church comprising a nave with a western tower and southern porch, together with a lower and narrower chancel. The nave, tower and chancel walls have a shallow batter, and slate roofs sit behind coped gables.

On the south side of the nave, to the left of the porch, is a blocked square-headed window, immediately to its left are two straight joints with a triangular dormer above. To the right of the porch is a single 19th-century two-light window with Y-tracery. The porch, dated 1847 in relief below the apex, has a segmental pointed arch and double iron gates.

The south wall of the chancel has a small lancet at the west end, then a low blocked doorway under a segmental pointed head, a blocked pointed window right of centre and another lancet further to the right. The latter lancet has a hood with re-used dog-tooth moulding from the old church. Above and to the right of the window is an early 19th-century oval memorial tablet. The east window consists of two cusped lights under a square head with a hood mould.

On the north side of the chancel is a vestry added in 1899, next to which is an added gabled projection housing the organ, which has a window with Y-tracery and a doorway with re-used chamfered jambs. The north wall of the nave has a blocked pointed doorway at the centre, and a single window with Y-tracery to its right. A triangular dormer at the west end corresponds with the south wall. An added projection is set against the north side of the tower and west side of the nave.

The two-stage tower has two corbel tables in the west wall, the upper of which sits below the embattled crown. The east wall also has two corbel tables (with a third visible inside). The north wall has a single narrow light, while the south wall has similar windows, now blocked.

The interior has a ceiled seven-bay wagon roof in the nave. The plain chancel arch is pointed and plastered. The chancel roof is three bays and similar to the nave. The east window has a low segmental rere arch and is flanked by keeled shafts that appear to have been designed either for an earlier, taller window or to have been salvaged from the old church. The piscina has a single attached shaft below it and a triangular head.

The polygonal pulpit has Jacobean panels with beasts' heads and is constructed of parts reclaimed from a pulpit at Shiplake, Oxfordshire. The round font comprises re-used materials composed of two separate pieces. The upper piece has an unusually small lead-lined bowl with thin shafts around the rim suggesting it has been inverted; it is said to have originally been the base of a cross shaft that was converted to a stoup. The lower piece is said to have been a millstone. The stones were installed as the new font in 1937 on a square base with splayed angles, which was probably the base of the previous font. The Jacobean font cover is from Sonning church, Berkshire.

A wooden tablet over the chancel arch displays the Ten Commandments, Creed, Lord's Prayer and Royal Arms. A west gallery is dated 1948, with steps leading up from beneath it into the embrasure of the west window. The pews have plain panelled ends.

Several windows contain early 20th-century glass. The east window has Bible scenes by T F Curtis of Ward & Hughes. The southeast chancel window, by W Glasby and dated 1931, shows an archangel holding flowers, while the southwest chancel window of around 1935, possibly also by Glasby, depicts a Virgin and Child. Memorial glass in the nave north window is dated 1948.

In the south wall of the chancel is a marble wall tablet with achievement commemorating John Bennet (died 1723) and his son (died 1726). In the north wall are two wall tablets: one to the Beale family of around the 1770s, comprising a broken pediment, achievement and Latin inscription, and a plainer white marble tablet on a black background to Thomas Penrice (died 1846), made by P Rogers of Swansea.