Church Heritage Record 914031

Seven-bay nave with aisles, the former chancel arch in-filled with brick; west tower; substantial single-storey south-west porch and shallow projecting north-west porch.

North aisle is 13th century (v. north doorway), though with walls and windows of the earlier 14th century; the predominant impression, given especially by the tower, clerestorey and internal arcades, is late Perpendicular. The chancel is said to have been destroyed by a flood in 1613.

In the Middle Ages, Parsons Drove was a chapelry of Leverington, about four miles away; it only became a separate parish in 1870. It was quite independent though, with burial rights from 1397 and its own chaplain appointed by the rector of Leverington. The church was closed in 1974 and vested in the Redundant Churches Fund, now the Churches Conservation Trust. The church sits to one end of the village that stretches along the two mile Drove, probably a former green lane, in a walled, now overgrown, churchyard (the wall to the road of 1844) with many grave markers, including box tombs. Much of the exterior was re-limewashed when Peter Foster repaired the church after vesting, but the medieval fabric is of greenstone rubble and brick except for the base of the magnificent west tower faced in Lincolnshire limestone. The south aisle wall was rebuilt in the early nineteenth century (perhaps in 1823, the date painted on a roof timber inside) and is of rubble and coursed limestone, probably re-used from the medieval wall. The chancel was destroyed by a flood in 1613 and the chancel arch bricked up. The present east window is an insertion of 1895, when the slate-covered nave roof was reconstructed reusing some old timbers. The original c.1500 cambered tie-beams survive (they have the timbers of a flat ceiling embedded in them) but the eastern one is also dated 1795, which could be the date of the tie-beam trusses above. Although the nave arcades and clerestorey are of c.1500, the north aisle wall is of c.1350 incorporating the earliest visible fabric, the c.1225 north door. The east and west walls of the south aisle and the south door and porch are of mid-fifteenth century date. The west tower is of a similar date and is the most accomplished part of the church. The lower two stages are of Lincolnshire limestone ashlar, with immense three-light windows to each side at lower level. Given the ground conditions, it is not surprising that the north and south windows have been bricked up, possibly not long after they were built. The tower does not show any signs of structural failure, but the upper stages are of rubble with small two-light belfry windows. An oddity is the recumbent figures on the northeast and southeast external buttress plinths. It is possible they are the patrons as they are not grotesques as can be found on other towers, though they have no identification such as heraldry.

The two most immediately noticeable characteristics of this church are the noble proportion of the fine battlemented Perpendicular tower and the great length of the nave and aisles. The tower is of four storeys, subdivided by string courses, and has angle buttresses of shallow profile - except in the north-east corner where there is a thickening to provide space for the stair turret, lit by a series of pierced quatrefoils set in square stone frames. The lower two storeys of the tower (the first floor stage rising to the level of the nave roof-ridge) are faced in stone laid in regular courses, while the upper two storeys are of rubble stone rendered, much of the rendering now being patchy and requiring replacement. The second stage has uncommonly tall and large windows for a!tower, the north and south windows being bricked up - no doubt for reasons of structural stability - though their curvilinear tracery still shows. The west window is still glazed, and consists of three lights rising to a great height with two elongated sexfoils on the head. The third storey of the tower has a simple lancet opening in all four faces, and the top storey has large perpendicularbell-openings consisting of two cinquefoiled lights with tracery in the head. 

Internally, the tower arch of perpendicular panelling soars to the nave roof ridge (reinstated in 1895 as the roof had been lowered across the arch; the timber slots are visible on the arch). Inside is a tierceron vault with carved bosses (a Man of Sorrows, green man and Tudor roses) rising from grotesque corbels. The staircase entry is incorporated into the north arch respond and leads to a wall passage in front of the north window, suggesting there was a gallery. The large, framed west door is late medieval too, as probably is the octagonal font with various simple tracery patterns to each side. The nave arcades abut the tower buttresses and their four-centred arches are almost semi-circular. Their sophisticated mouldings and the large three-light clerestorey above suggest they are of the sixteenth century. The arch mouldings differ slightly and the south clerestorey windows are larger and lower than the north. Three north aisle windows retain medieval heraldic stained glass (including that of the Trinity) and in the east bay, an early nineteenth century range from when this was used as a vestry and a fine c.1350 pillar piscina. The roof is post-medieval and a gargoyle and external corbels have been re-used to support the wall-posts. The south aisle retains its fifteenth century end walls and porch, but the south wall was rebuilt with wooden two-light Y-tracery windows. As a roof timber is dated 1823, new pews were ‘finished in 1825’ and the first service held after the church had been painted on 24 July 1825, this is the likely date for this work. The good framed and panelled south door is of the same date. Alterations were made to the chancel furnishings in 1844 and an organ was introduced in 1848. However the present stalls, screens, tiled floor, altar and altar rails and nave pews are of later nineteenth century date, as is probably the positioning of the 1637 dated pulpit on a new base. The table with bulbous legs at the end of the south aisle is partly of a similar date. The base panels of a fifteenth century screen are now behind the south side choir stalls and the mouldings of the Victorian screens elsewhere are based on it. There are a number of black marble and limestone ledger stones in the nave and aisle floors and a marble tablet to John Peck (d.1851), erected by a few of his friends in testimony of his talents and services, which included a Crucifix painted on glass in 1824 for the previous east window.

Inside, the best features are the immensely tall panelled tower arch towards the nave, the tierceron vault of the tower (with wide circular opening for the bell-ropes) and the impressive and exceedingly graceful seven-bay arcade. The shafts of the piers are semi-polygonal and the arches themselves are nearly round. The west bays are cut into by the eastern reinforcement of the tower. The roof appears to be 18th century and is a good strong handsome construction with tie-beams, kingposts, and braces. The floors are of brick, almost entirely, with traces of glazing in parts (e.g. round the font area); in the centre of the nave aisle are a number of ledger stones.