Church Heritage Record 635079

West tower; nave of three bays with aisles and south clerestory; south porch; chancel with one-bay chapel on the north which is a continuation of the north aisle.

The south doorway is very late Norman and the arcades follow slightly later, in the early thirteenth century. Most of the windows are Perpendicular, as is the west tower. The church was restored by Dr. John Covel, Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Chancellor of York Minster, at his own expense in 1709. It was restored again during the 19th century when all trace of his work seems (The church to have been removed, including the tablet which recorded it was in a state of ruinous disorder' in 1846).

The tower is built of fine ashlar masonry and is of a piece with the walls of the aisles at each side. It has, for example, a bold ogee-moulded plinth which continues into the aisle walls (although only to the corner of the south aisle and returning eastwards before the corner of the north aisle, which suggests that the aisle has been widened).

It is of four stages, each slightly recessed from that below, in particular the topmost. The western angles have diagonal buttresses so slender as to be purely decorative, not structural, and these die into the wall just below the stringcourse marking the top stage. In the west wall of the lowest stage there is a blocked doorway with one order of wavy mouldings and a moulded hood. Above it the three-light west window is set off-centre to the north because of the stair in the south-west angle.

The second stage has no openings and the third stage only has a small rectangular loop to the east. The uppermost stage which houses. the bell has two-light openings in each face, all with Perpendicular tracery without cusps. The moulded hoods have carved stops which may be in the form of heads, and the parapet has two gargoyles on the north side and two on the south. The parapet has moulded tops to the battlements and appears to have lost pinnacles from the angles and from the middle of each side.

The nave has narrow aisles on the north and south, and the northern aspect is rather forbidding since there are no clerestory windows and only one small two-light window in the aisle (and another further east by which point the aisle has really become a north chancel chapel). The parapet also is not moulded or embattled, possibly as a result of later alterations. The south side is more interesting. The aisle, which has the porch towards the west end, is lit by two rectangular windows in the south wall and one in the east, all with a single broad light under an ogee head. Between the bays there are low square buttresses. The porch, which may perhaps be the only part of the 1709 work to survive, has a two-centred arch with a hood resting on roll-moulded imposts. It has no windows, but two fragments of carving are set into the walls. The floor is paved of stone flags and there are stone benches at each side.

The south wall of the nave is pierced by large clerestory windows, three in number and each of three lights. These have cinquefoiled heads to the main lights under a four-centred arch with a hollow moulding. The parapet is straight, without battlements, but with continuous mouldings. All the nave walls are of rough rubble in contrast to the fine ashlar of the tower.

The south wall of the chancel is built of squared rubble, more refined than the nave walls but not as precise as those of the tower. It has two Perpendicular ogee-headed windows in the south wall of two lights under square heads without hoods and between them a Caernarvon-arched priest's doorway round which the stringcourse which encircles the chancel at sill level breaks upwards. The north wall is blind. The east wall has a three-light window with cinquefoiled lights and Perpendicular tracery with late Decorated motifs of panels and quatrefoils. It may be Victorian. Like the nave, the chancel has a moulded horizontal parapet which also follows the line of the east gable. There are no buttresses except to the western angles of the tower and to the south aisle.

The interior of the church can only be approachedthough the south porch. The doorway in the south wall is late Norman in date, with nook shafts supporting one square order and one chamfer round a semi-circular arch and waterleaf capitals. Within the building, the floor is paved with stone flags and the former mensa of the mediaeval altar is said to be under the pews. Towards the west end a stone is incised with a pointed quatrefoil indicated by an outline of dashes which may be a template for window tracery. The walls are now unplastered and therefore show their building history quite plainly.

The arcades and chancel arch form one campaign, dating from shortly after the south doorway. Both arcades have cylindrical pillars, the south with round moulded capitals and the north with octagonal capitals with the same mouldings. The north-east respond is semi-cylindrical but the eastern respond of the south arcade is keeled and has small shafts at each side. It also has a band of dogtooth ornament. The arches all have two roll-moulded orders and the roll mouldings have fillets along the edges. At the west end both arcades end with the springing of arches for a further bay which are cut off by the fifteenth-century west wall which, built of fine ashlar, goes with the Perpendicular tower. At the ends of the aisles there are blocked half-arches of indeterminate purpose. The chancel arch is like the arches of the arcades, though wider, with two filletted roll mouldings and a moulded hood. The outer moulding ends on moulded imposts above plain responds and the inner on corbels which seem to have been adapted from the capitals of attached shafts.

High on the wall above the chancel arch there are signs of the earlier, more steeply pitched nave gable. This was altered in the fifteenth century when the present clerestory was made on the south side and the north wall was correspondingly heightened but not pierced by windows. The tower arch at the west end has two chamfers, the outer continuing to the floor but the inner dying into the responds. The nave roof appears to incorporate old timbers and has florets under the kingposts on each tie beam.

The chancel has no windows in the north wall but an arch opens into the chapel (now housing the organ) which forms a continuation of the north aisle. It is lit by a two-light window in the north wall but has no east window. The arch has two chamfered orders and rests on semi octagonal moulded corbels with carved heads below. The outer chamfer continues to the floor. The chancel roof is of three bays and appears to be all nineteenth-century with geometrical tracery above the tie-beams. There is one step at the chancel arch, two at the rails and a footpace. Amongst the stone flags there are several ledger slabs of interest.