Church Heritage Record 634092

Aisled nave and chancel of almost identical dimensions, each of two bays. These are separated by a central tower carrying a stone spire. The aisles of the nave embrace the tower giving the effect of transepts although the same roof-line continues. The south porch of the nave is of timber and there are a vestry and sacristy on the north side of the chancel.

The church was built in 1848 to designs by R.C. Carpenter at the expense of Mrs. Hodson (this is recorded on a framed document which hangs in the church). Carpenter was much favoured by the Cambridge Camden Society whose obituary of him spoke of his originality and variety and the harmony of parts in his buildings. He was a friend of Augustus Welby Pugin. The sacristy north of the chancel was added later in 1887.

The church is built of hard greyish flint with softer stone, also grey, for the dressings. The flints are roughly shaped into rectangular blocks, and the grey tonality is complemented by the bluish slates on the roofs. The approach to the door in the south nave aisle is from the lych-gate at the lowest corner of the churchyard from which a path cuts diagonally across between the nineteenth century head-stones. The path ends at the south porch which is of wood, with panelled sides in the lower part above which are open arcades, four arches in each of the two bays, supported on turned wooden colonettes. The south gable is weather-boarded and the barge-boards have cusped decoration which is picked up elsewhere in the church (at the giblets on the buttresses of the chancel, for example). The doorway to the church has a two-centred arch with a drip-stone ending in square label stops enriched with foliated carving. The door itself is heavily studded. 

The windows of the aisles are filled with curvilinear tracery, all of two lights with attenuated trefoils in the head of both lights. Typical of the care for detail which The Ecclesiologist commended in its obituary notice of the architect is the variety of window tracery of the church which is all of the same style, but suits the demands of different parts of the building. The two windows in the south wall of the chancel are larger than those in the nave aisles, and have rather more complicated tracery, each of the paired lights having an ogee head and then there is curvilinear tracery aboved based on leaf patterns. The eaves of the chancel are enriched with a band of ball-flower ornament with a head for the water-spout which could have come from a mediaeval bestiary.

The tower which rises between nave and chancel is the same width as each of them, and is therefore of large dimensions compared with the church itself. It is divided into two equal stages by a string-course just above the level of the chancel gable. The lower storey has a single light which admits light to the crossing space within. It has a trefoil in the head and a dripstone with foliated stops. The upper stage is slightly set back and contains the bell-chamber and the clock.

The spire is a stone broach spire with two orders of lucarnes in alternate faces. The lower are two-light, miniature versions of the belfry openings below. The upper are tiny single-light lancets under gablots. Access to the upper floors of the tower is by an octagonal turret stair in the north-east angle. This has a stone conical cap which appears over the chancel roof.

The east window is the grandest in the church and stands within a retaining arch supported on attached columns. It has three lights with tracery more complicated than other windows but in the same grand style.

North of the chancel lie the vestry and sacristy; these were added in 1887. The sacristy is gabled parallel to the chancel, and the choir vestry is slightly lower, joining the two and with a roof running at right-angles to both. The vestry has a three-light window under a square-headed dripstone, rather out of keeping with the careful fenestration of the rest of the building, but Still not as unsuitable as the careless east gable of the sacristy.

The north wall has a two-light window and the west wall has a two-light window of which the lower part is blank end forms the foundation stone with an inscription stating that the additions were made in 1887.

The immediately striking feature is the feeling of space created by the centrally placed tower under which are tall arches with impressive mouldings opening into nave and chancel and smaller arches leading into the aisle bays which flank the tower giving the impression of transepts. The space thus created is filled with fine Tractarian furnishings of the best order, unexpected in such a remote country parish. It seems that the church was built for a Fr. Hutchins, a curate from London who wished to create the perfect setting for worship. 

The nave, crossing and aisles are filled with pews which are plain. The floor is of red and black quarries and the walls are painted cream. The arcades opening into the aisles are borne on octagonal piers centrally and half-piers against the tower and west wall. The west window is sot high in the wall above a door which is now disused and has the universal curvilinear tracery. Its internal hood-mould has square labelstops like those outside the south door.

The chancel (including the screen) presents a remarkable and uncommon survival of Tractarian furnishing and decoration in a virtually untouched state.