"The church of ST. MARY stands on high ground in the centre of the village and consists of chancel 25 ft. by 14 ft. 6 in., clearstoried nave of four bays 48 ft. by 14 ft. 9 in., north and south aisles respectively 7 ft. and 5 ft. 3 in. wide, north transept 16 ft. 6 in. by 16 ft. 3 in., south transept 13 ft. 6 in. by 15 ft. 9 in. wide, and south porch, with chamber over, 6 ft. 8 in. by 8 ft., all these measurements being internal. The width across nave and aisles is 31 ft. 10 in. The west wall of the nave is surmounted by a bell-cote containing two bells.
The building is of rubble plastered internally, and the chancel has a stone-slated eaved roof. The other roofs are leaded and of low pitch and there is a plain parapet to the north transept, but elsewhere the lead overhangs. The chancel was almost entirely rebuilt in 1796 and externally is wholly of that period. There was a restoration of the fabric in 1887. The chancel was new roofed in 1894.
The earliest church on the site was probably a 12th-century aisleless building with small square-ended chancel, the extent of whose nave is represented by the existing three eastern bays. About 1200 a north aisle was thrown out and an extra bay added at the west end, increasing the nave to its present length. This is indicated, as at Burley, by a break in the north arcade between the third and fourth bays from the east, where a masonry pier, or short length of wall with a respond on each face represents the position of the original west wall, which probably was left standing till the completion of the arcade. The erection of the present west end of the church was then proceeded with, the old wall taken down and a south aisle added, the new arcade being set out in four regular bays after the demolition of the south wall. All this work is very early in the 13th century, and the chancel, from the evidence of the existing chancel arch, seems to have been built, probably on its present plan, at the same time, or shortly after. The slightly greater width of the north aisle seems to have obtained from the first: there is no indication of any widening having taken place and its west window is somewhat larger than the corresponding one in the south aisle.
In the 14th century new windows were inserted in the aisles, the porch and clearstory erected, the wall of the south aisle heightened and the pitch of its roof altered. A north transept may have been added at the time of the foundation of the chantry in 1351, but if so it was apparently remodelled, or rebuilt in a more elaborate fashion in the following century, when the walls were heightened, the new roof thus covering the eastern bay of the clearstory. The south transept was probably added about the same time, but it is of very plain character, without distinguishing architectural features of any kind except in the windows, which are of 15th-century date.
The chancel appears to have been rebuilt on the old foundations, its chamfered plinth being apparently original. The lower part of the east wall, in which there are two round-headed recesses, or aumbries, one on each side of the altar, appears also to have been left standing, and two grotesque stone corbels in the eastern angles, supporting the wall-plates, are also old. Otherwise the chancel is as rebuilt at the end of the 18th century, with a round-headed east window, and two windows of similar character on the south side. The north wall is blank. The pointed 13th-century chancel arch is of two chamfered orders on half-round responds with moulded capitals and bases, the latter much mutilated: the capitals have plain bells.
The nave arcades consist of four semicircular arches of two chamfered orders, with hood-moulds on the side towards the nave, springing from cylindrical pillars and half-round responds, all with moulded capitals and bases. In the north arcade the three eastern arches are of equal size, but the western arch, beyond the masonry pier, is of less width and height and the capitals of its responds correspondingly smaller. The outer order of the easternmost arch and that on the east side of the second, have moulded stops above the capitals, and there are head-stops and one with an ornamented disc to the hood-moulds. In the south arcade the arches are uniform and the outer order of each has moulded stops; there are head-stops to all the hood-moulds. The bases of all the pillars stand on short square plinths, which are probably portions of the original nave walls.
The north transept, in which the organ is placed, has a moulded plinth and string at sill level along the north and east walls. There is a single north-west buttress and a pair at the north-east angle, the two buttresses facing north going up the full height of the wall, breaking the parapet, and finishing originally with pinnacles, the stumps of which alone remain. The east buttress stops below the parapet with a crocketed triangular head, and has on its face a shallow trefoiled niche, with moulded bracket and battlemented sill. The transept is lighted in the north and east walls by two large pointed windows each of three cinquefoiled lights, with moulded jambs, sloping sills and vertical transomed tracery. The sill of the north window has large moulded battlements. The west wall is wholly occupied internally by a fourcentred widely chamfered tomb recess, with hoodmould, and trefoiled panelling on the chamfer face, to provide for which the wall is continued about 3 ft. into the aisle, and from it a stone lintel is carried to the nave wall above the arcade; the end of the wall and the soffit of the lintel are panelled. At the south end of the east wall is a cinquefoiled piscina with projecting fluted bowl and embattled sill supported on a halfoctagonal pedestal with chamfered plinth. No other piscina remains in the church.
The south transept is lighted from the south and east by windows of three cinquefoiled lights, that on the east square-headed with simple vertical tracery; the taller south window is four-centred with moulded jambs and mullions and transomed tracery with a large quatrefoil in the middle light. There is a moulded image bracket on each side of the east window. The west wall of the transept is carried across the aisle on a wooden lintel.
The plain round-headed north doorway, now blocked, is contemporary with the nave arcades, and has a chamfered hood-mould; the pointed south doorway is of 14th-century date, of two continuous orders, the inner hollow chamfered, the outer with wave moulding, and the hood has rounded stops. The lateral windows of both aisles are square-headed and of two trefoiled lights without tracery, the westernmost on the north side being rather earlier in character than the others, with single-chamfered jambs and soffit cusping.
The porch has buttresses of two stages east and west, and pointed doorway of two continuous orders similar to that of the nave, with wooden gates. The upper story stands awkwardly above the roof of the aisle and has a low-pitched coped gable at each end. The chamber was approached from the aisle by a staircase contained in a rectangular buttress-like projection, of which only the upper steps remain, and was lighted at its south end by a small square-headed grated window.
There are three square-headed 14th-century windows of two trefoiled lights on each side of the clearstory, and on the south a fourth and larger one of three cinquefoiled lights at the east end inserted in the 15th century: the easternmost window on the north side is now covered by the transept, the west wall of which blocks one of the lights of the second window. There are also two single-light 15th-century cinquefoiled windows, now blocked, at the east end of the nave above the chancel arch, and on the apex of the gable is a sanctus bell-cote.
The west end of the building forms a very interesting early 13th-century composition, the end wall of the nave being thickened to about 5 ft. to support the massive bell-cote, which rises high above the roof, and is strengthened by three buttresses, one at each angle and one centrally placed which is carried up in a series of stages almost the full height of the bell-cote. The buttresses have a greater projection than Norman pilasters, but are more or less of the same type; those at the angles stand well in front of the aisle walls and are surmounted at the second stage by tall cylindrical pinnacles terminating in truncated cones. At the end of the aisles are the lancet windows already described, and the middle buttress is pierced by a taller but very narrow lancet splaying internally to over 5 ft. The bell-cote terminated originally in a single large gable with lateral gablets at its base facing north and south, but the upper part of the gable has been removed and its place taken by a roughly wrought ridged roof; the gablets, surmounted by crosses, remain. The bell openings have arches of three chamfered orders.
The early 13th-century font has a circular bowl with simple round arched arcading, standing on five later octagonal shafts.
The pulpit and all the fittings are modern.
In the south transept is a well-preserved 13thcentury coped coffin lid with floriated cross, the stem of which has the 'omega' ornament.
The nave roof is nearly flat and of 15th-century character, but one of the tie-beams is dated 1637 and another 1804.
Over the chancel arch are extensive remains of a well-painted Royal Arms, probably dating from 1796. Near the south doorway is a square pillar alms-box with three staples, carved with simple scroll work and the initials and date 't. b. 1637.'
The 'small plate of brass fixt on a gravestone,' noted by Wright, is still in the floor of the north transept close to the nave; the inscription reads 'Hic jacet Willielmus Wade fundator hujus cantarie, cujus anime ppicietur Deus.' On the north wall of the transept, now hidden by the organ, is a brass plate recording the benefactions to the chantry of William Villers, bachelor of laws, formerly master, Thomas Villers his brother, and Robert Newton, master, the dates of whose deaths are not stated. On the eastern most pillar of the north arcade is a brass plate to William Chesilden (d. 1698), in the south transept a tablet to Thomas Burneby (d. 1705), and in the north aisle tablets to Henry Smith (d. 1716), lord of the manor, and Penelope his widow (d. 1727), whose 'extraordinary success in Physick and her extensive charity to thousands of poor people (made) her loss universal to the British Nation.'
The two bells were recast by Taylor and Co. of Loughborough in 1920.
The plate consists of a cup and cover paten of 1570–71, and a paten of 1638–9, the latter inscribed 'Manton 1639.'
The registers before 1812 are as follows: (i) baptisms 1573–1705, marriages 1571–1652, burials 1661–1705; (ii) baptisms, marriages and burials 1705–51; (iii) baptisms and burials 1752–1812; (iv) marriages 1754–1812.
There is a War Memorial Cross in the churchyard."
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