Church Heritage Record id18527

West tower, four-bay nave with south aisle and clerostory; chancel.

A lancet in the west wall of the south aisle suggests that there was a building here in the late twelfth century, but the remaining windows and doorway of this aisle are all thirteenth-century, and the arcade also fits this dating. The chancel, basically Decorated, now has Perpendicular windows and the north wall of the nave was also refenestrated at this time. The tower retains Decorated bell-openings. The church was restored in the nineteenth century when, for example, the chancel east window was entirely renewed.

The first part of the church to be seen is also the earliest to survive, being the south wall of the south aisle with the entrance doorway and three Early English windows of two lights but each an interesting example of the developing treatment of the form. The doorway has a finely moulded two-centred arch on three pairs of nook-shafts with moulded capitals. Evidence of a porch remains in the shorn-off hoodmould, the three steps leading down to a stone flagged pavement, and in the small area of plaster on the wall surface above.

The first window is the earliest in form, the two lights with a simple chamfered central mullion forking into Y tracery. The second window elaborates upon this by the introduction of a circle between the arms of the Y, making a straightforward plate tracery design, and the third window is the most advanced of all, but now much damaged by a lowering of the roof line (although this has now been restored to its proper level, the stones above the two lights of the window have been wrongly set to suggest a much taller traceried opening). The external reveals of this window are moulded and there is a tiny head carved in the V between the heals of the lights. The middle window also lost its hoodmould in the lowering of the roof level. In the west wall of the aisle is a single lancet, set off-centre to the north, which suggests that the aisle may have been widened at an early date and the windows and doorway re-used in a new vall further south. Above this window is the line of a steeper gable to the older narrower aisle. The east window of the aisle is a three-light perpendicular insertion with cinquefoiled ogee heads to the main lights ard panel tracery above.

The chancel has evidently had a long history of structural weakness since, although it is the part of the church now in worst condition, it was also the part most thoroughly restored in the nineteenth-century. All the window tracery was renewed and so was most of the masonry of the east wall and probably the south wall. The east window is of three lights, of similar design to the east window of the south aisle though larger and with the addition of stepped and enbattled transoms above the main lights. Towards the west end of the south wall is a three-light late Perpendicular window under a square label with heads carved on the stops and towards the eastern corner is an earlier three-light window with cinquefoiled ogee heads to the main lights under a four-centred arch. Close to this is a priest's door of simple form, now long blocked. The north chancel wall is blind except for a window close to the junction with the nave which repeats the design of its fellow on the south though without the label. The eastern angels are buttressed in line with the east wall, but both show severe signs of structural failure.

The north nave wall is the proudest part of the church, a fine Perpendicular display of tall three-light windows with moulded reveals and elegant panel tracery over main lights with the ususal cuspod ogee heads. Between each pair of windows the bays are defined by tall buttresses each with three offsets. Only one now rises to its full height (the level of the top of the window arches) and even this has been repaired considerably at the top with late sixteenth-century brick. Two others only rise to the offset below the top and the western one has been tapered off in brick at an even lower level. The eastern buttress which was evidently of a slightly differing design to accommodate a projection for the rood stair has disappeared altogether and the result is a cobbling together of flint and bricks. All the buttresses have moulded stone plinths and the windows are enriched by arches above whese voussoirs are of bricks alternating with squared flints. The western bay has no window, but a doorway which has a simple two- centred arch with moulded jambs rising without a break to the apex of the arch.

The west tower is of three stages, very substantial and with few openings in the walls. The ground stage has at one time had a west doorway but this is now built up and the plinth which encircles the base of the tower has been continuod across the place. The ground floor is now lit by a west window with two-centred arched head of two chamfered orders enclosing wooden Y tracery. The intermediate floor order is lit by small rectangular loops on the north-west and south faces and the uppermost stage has paired bell openings with a pointed mouchette in the tracery in all four directions. These openings are further made distinctive by fine moulding on all the members. The hoodmuld over each continues horizontally round the tower to connect with the other windows, and thus forms the only stringcourse save one below the west window which only crosses the west wall face. The foot of the tower is elevated on a plinth and buttresses rise at the corners, those at the western angles being diagonal and those at the eastern following the line of the west wall of the nave. The loss of the parapet contributes to the austere impression, but it seems unlikely that it ever rose much higher than at present.

The first feature of interest immediately noticed upon entering the church is the high quality of the windows and arcade of the south aisle. The arcade has octagonal piers with octagonal capitals of uncommonlylow height, only about six feet from the floor. The arches above have two orders of hollow mouldings and small leaves at the intersection of one arch with the next, some now broken and missing. Each arch is outlined by a projecting hoodmould. The south aisle windows have shafts and south wall moulded rere-arches, and the eastern window in the south wall has a plinth for a statue at the east end of the sill. The roof is carried on stone corbels which along the south wall are carved with heads thought to represent Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Edward VI, dating the roof to the reign of the latter; this may, however, be imaginitive misinterpretation. The arcade has an additional half bay at the west end which seems to be part of the original intention, and this has a small carving of a single leaf at one end of the moulded capital of the respond. Indication that the south wall of the aisle has been subjected to alterations may be found in the fact that the doorway does not come directly opposite an arch of the arcade as might be expected. The eastern respond of the arcade has a cusped recess thought to have been the site of a burial, but it scareely seems deep enough, and was perhaps more possibly a recess for the end of a bracket in connection with a shrine.

The nave is tall, a parallelogramrather than a rectangle, and well lit by the large windows in the north wall. The roof is steeply pitched and designed with four wide and one narrow bay to coincide with the rhythm of the south arcade. It is a plain arch-braced construction without a collar, the intersections of purlins and principals decorated with carved flowers. Some of the stone corbels have grotesque faces and one is an angel with an open book; on the north side two have been renewed with uncarved blocks during the last century and one is concealed by the rood-stair projection in the north-east corner. At the west end of the nave the tower arch is set off-centre to the south; it has three chamfered orders rising from square bases and is outlined by a moulded hood. The timber screen and doorway within the opening seem to be late Georgian, typical thin Gothic with half-quatrefoil shafts cach side of the door and an entablature on consoles above, the door itself sharply pointed and with applied minimal gothic tracery. High in the wall above are signs of a former opening, perhaps for a sanctus bell-ringer to see the altar. The Perpendicular windows in the north wall have plain reveals with chamfers on the rere-arches, and at the north-east corner is a later projection to house the rood stair (now vanished save for the lower doorway).

The chancel arch is very such later than the tower arch, and so refined as to be almost understated. A slender outer hollow moulding runs from the floor to the apex of the arch and the inner moulded order is carried on tall half-round shafts attached to the responds. The chancel beyond seems now to be almost entirely nineteenth-century, with encaustic tiles on the floor and entirely renewed tracery in the east window. On the south side stands the organ, but the remainder of the furnishings have been removed. Below the sill of the south-east window is piscina under an ogee arch, now much damaged. The circular drain has been worked loose from its seating, and might well break if it falls to the floor. The sill of the window comes down low to provide space for sedilia. The chancel roof, with closely-spaced rafters, is entirely nineteenth-century in date.