Church Heritage Record id18895

West tower; nave with three-bay aisles and south porch; chancel with north and south aisles (that on the north now an organ chmber and vestry, that on the south the burial vault of the St. Albans family.)

The aspect of the building as it stands is Decorated (the nave arcades) and Perpendicular (the tower and clerestory), with the chancel and various Gothick elements dating from a restoration and extension in about 1775. At this time the north and south aisles of the chancel were added, and the plaster vaults of nave and chancel were inserted. The interior of the church was considerably altered by Harriet Mellon, the actress, shortly after her marriage to the Ninth Duke of St. Albans in 1827. No architect is known for any of the later works.

The tower measures about 90ft. from ground to the parapet. Of this, the lower two-thirds appear to represent the mediaeval fabric, and the upper a subsequent addition. The lower section is divided most unequally by a stringeorge about three-quarters of the way up. Below this in the south-east corner with the nave, rises a rectangular projection housing a staircase which, together with the unbuttressed severity of the tower itself, suggest that the original fabric may be much earlier than its present Perpendicular dress implies. The west doorway is Georgian Gothic with a four-centred arch evidently representing a Perpendicular predecessor, the spandrels carved with flat wavy trefoils and the jambs with roll-mouldings. The rectangular frame is contained beneath a square label. The doorway is now walled up with bricks. Above the doorway is a three-light Perpendicular window with cinquefoil-headed lights, and otherwise the wall is blind. The north and south walls each have tiny rectangular lights close to the stringcourse which marks the next stage, these lighting a small chamber housing the works of the clock. The staircase projection also has small slit openings at three levels, and close to the uppermost a sundial which may be dated but is now illegible. The stage above the stringcourse houses the bells, as it would have done in the mediaeval period, although it seems likely that there was a plan to move them higher in the tower.

Compared with the abnormal height of the tower, the body of the church is quite short, the nave being of three bays, without any buttresses, and lit by three two-light windows of the regular pattern in the north and south aisle walls. The clerestory still has mediaeval paired lights within square-headed recesses, with cusping in the heads of the lights. The wall surface between the windows is decorated with odd crosses, made up of what seem from the ground to be quatrefoil shaped stones arranged in the form of Latin crosses (one for each of the upper three arms and two for the stem). The parapets of aisles and clerestory have tall pinnacles with shapeless crockets and ogee finials. 

In the 1776 restoration, the east end of the church was enlarged by north and south aisles flanking the chancel. As might be expected, these completely new additions show more carefully integrated Georgian Gothick features than the nave and tower, which were altered rather than rebuilt. The masonry of the chancel aisles is more refined than elsewhere in the building, and while the north aisle has two windows to the north, the south has a doorway in place of its single south window, placed in the middle of the three bays. In the east walls of each aisle are big quatrefoils punched through the wall surface. The parapets of chancel and aisles are again embellished with tall pinnacles identical to those on the nave parapets.

The tower space is very tall, the floor of the chamber above being some 18ft . above the floor of the nave. The staircase in the south-east angle is entered by a low doorway with a four-centred arch head. The doorway at the head of this stair has a simple ogee head. Half-way up the side walls of the tower space are corbels to support a west gallery. The floor of this area is paved, like the alleys of the nave, with large square stone slabs relieved by small black squares laid diagonally at the intersections, part of the 1776 improvements. The tower space is of the same width as the nave, with a wide arch of two hollow-chamfered orders which dies into the walls on the north and south sides.

The arcades of the nave are Decorated, with octagonal piers and semi-octagonal responds against the east and west walls. The arches are of two chamfered orders, the inner broader than the outer. The clerestory windows above stand within plain unmoulded reveals, and the 1776 remodelling provided a strikingly simple groin vault of plaster with small florets at the intersection of the roll-moulded groins in the centre of each bay. The aisle windows are also within plain reveals, and at the east end of the south aisle may be seen signs of some alterations connected, no doubt, with the addition of the St. Albans aisle.

The chancel arch, like the tower arch, is of two hollow chamfered orders, and likewise dies into the walls to north and south without resting on responds. Beyond it, the chancel still retains plaster on the walls, and represents virtually what its aspect has been since c.1330. The lateral walls have Gothick cornices with tiny trefoiled arcading executed in three dimensions; above this is a curved plaster vault decorated with groups of panels with trefoiled ends in low relief, running across from north to south. In the north wall is an opening (now the filled by an organ console) with quatrefoil shafts attached at each side and moulded ogee arches terminating in a foliate finial, a typical design of the period. Above are two quatrefoil openings punched through the wall which resemble those on the exterior walls at the east end of the church. There was formerly a similar opening in the corresponding position on the south side, but this has long since been blocked.