Church Heritage Record 633157

West tower, aisleless nave (now roofless) with south porch; chancel.

Money was left for the church in 1450; the nave is basically of c.1300 and the south porch ante-dates 1530. The chancel was was entirely rebuilt in 1835 at a cost of £500. 

Since the roof of the nave was destroyed by fire in 1968, the fortunes of the church have not been happy.

The west tower rises throughout three stages to aparapet with double-stepped battlements. At the corners are diagonal buttresses which die into the walls at the top stage after off-sets at regular intervals. The outer face of each of the western buttresses is decorated with flint flushwork in the lower parts, and the whole tower stands above a plinth enriched with arcading of flushwork trefoiled arches. The north and south walls are blind up to the belfry stage, and the west wall has a doorway at ground level, a two-centred arch with an inner moulding which rests like those of nook-shafts but is in fact continuous without corresponding capitals. Next comes a deeply hollowed moulding and then further shallow moulding define the outer edge of the arch. The hoodmould has square stops set at an angle. Above the doorway is a three-light Perpendicular transomed window, and the intermediate stage is lit by a small rectangular opening in the west face matched by one in the east face just above the ridge line of the nave. The belfry openings are of two cinquefoiled lights under a four-centred arch.

The nave, which now consists only of roofless walls, is quite simple, with doorways opposite each other one-third along from the west end. That on the north is now blocked, and has been for a long period of time; both have two-centred outer arches and flatter rere-arches, with simple chamfers. Further east the north wall has only one window, a Perpendicular design of two lights with a pointed quatrefoil between. The south wall has a window west of the porch of two lights, and a single lancet close to the east wall of the porch, and then a simple two-light window with Y tracery further east. Both north and south walls are roughcast, and there are minimal buttresses only at the eastern corners.

The south porch has been much rebuilt; it is faced with simple a repeating rows of flushwork panelling in the lower part, above which the gable is a nineteenth-century rebuilding in brick. The east and west walls are roughcast like those of the nave, and have once had two-light windows long filled in.

The design of the chancel is quite straightforward, of two bays with Decorated tracery in all the windows. In the south wall, with the bays divided by a central buttress, there are two windows, that in the western bay of two narrow lights with a quatrefoil between, rather tending towards Early English, and that in the eastern bay also of two lights, but much wider and with points to the lobes of the quatrefoil. The north wall has only a window corresponding to that in the western bay. The east window is of three lights with three to pointed quatrefoils above forming reticulated tracery. At the corners are diagonal buttresses.

The church is entered by the south porch, which leads into the roofless nave. The floor has been taken up, leaving an uneven surface of earth, rubble and broken bricks; the walls are still plastered. 

The chancel arch is of two moulded orders, the outer continuing to the ground and the inner carried on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases; to the right the head of a niche survives, a cinquefoiled arch with a band of blind quatrefoils above, and in the north wall towards the east end is a blocked lancet-shaped niche.

The chancel still preserves its nineteenth-century aspect, with black and buff quarry tiles on the floor and texts in Gothic lettering along the risers of three steps at the communion rails. The walls are articulated by a heavy moulded course which runs all round, dipping lower to form the sill of the windows. These are filled with quarries stamped with foliate eypatterns, save one which has clear glass. The roof is an open timber construction and the furnishings are in pine and oak.