Parish Church of St Mary

The Parish Church of St Mary is a building of Early English, 19th-century, and early 20th-century origins. It consists of a chancel, nave, a battlemented west tower, a south porch, and a north vestry; a modern vestry is linked to the north of the nave. The church is constructed of random red sandstone, with coped gables to the nave, chancel, south porch, and north vestry, topped with cross finials. Slate covers the roofs of the chancel and north vestry, while red clay tiles cover the nave. All windows date from a 19th-century restoration carried out in the Perpendicular style and feature square heads and hoodmoulds. The east window is a three-light design with Perpendicular tracery and a simple hoodmould. A small, round-headed doorway is located on the south side of the chancel. The south porch is from the 15th century and was re-roofed in 1902. It has a complexly moulded doorway with fleurons and flanking colonnettes, possibly originally containing an ogee canopy; a voussoired relieving arch is present. A small, cusped lancet window is positioned above the doorway, with a niche directly over it. The west tower is of Perpendicular design, with an embattled parapet rising from a corbel table and a strong batter at the base. The west doorway is 15th century, with complex moulded decoration under a projecting hoodmould with label stops. The west window features three cusped lights, with decorative interlacing tracery above, under a hoodmould with human head stops. Pairs of cusped, louvered belfry lights are present on each face of the tower. The north side of the nave is lit by three sets of two-light, cusped windows. To the east end is a stair outshut, with a slated roof, formerly leading to a rood loft. The 19th-century vestry, adjoining the chancel, has a square-headed doorway on the west side, two small lancets on the north side, a lancet in the gable, and a large, capped chimney on the east elevation with a small lancet to the left. Inside, an Early English, two-order chancel arch is present, featuring paired shafts with capitals carved with still-leaf decoration and crocketts. The tall tower arch is continuously moulded and of Perpendicular design. The chancel roof is arch-braced and dates from the early 20th century, while the similar, arch-braced nave roof is from the 19th century and decorated with gilded bosses, originally springing from stone corbels. The furnishings are in a Jacobethan style, including a good oak pulpit with a sounding board. The octagonal font is made of Portland stone, decorated with quatrefoils inset with black marble and supported on four black marble shafts with stiff-leaf capitals and moulded bases, set on two octagonal steps. A reredos, erected in 1883 by Sir George Forestier Walker, is ogee arched with three central crocketted and pinnacled niches, flanked by three lower, blind arches with quatrefoils above, and a cornice. An immersion baptistery, concealed and white-tiled, with a red calvary cross on the floor, was probably inserted during the 1909 restoration. A fine marble monument to members of the Webb family, with inscriptions flanking a central bronze relief of life and death, is located on the south side of the nave.