Description

BUXHALL BRETTENHAM ROAD
TM 05 NW

2/23 Church of St. Mary
9.12.55

- I

Parish church, mainly mid C14 in several phases; alterations of 1875 and 1923.
Nave, chancel, west tower and south porch; the vestry rebuilt in 1875. Flint
rubble, mainly plastered apart from the tower, with freestone dressings.
Embattled parapets of red brick with terracotta copings to the nave, and of
flint rubble and ashlar elsewhere; parapet gables. Graded riven Lakeland
slates to nave roof, Welsh slates to chancel. All the C14 work is of good
quality with much moulded stone; the chancel is earliest - of c.1330. Tall 2-
light side windows. The east window is of 5 lights with good mouchette
tracery. Above the east buttresses are square pinnacles with blank tracery
and crocketed gables; each corner has a grotesque carved on the base. Well-
moulded north chancel doorway; the vestry doorway is similar. A double
piscina has fine crocketed gables and pinnacles and blind tracery; it is
linked to a wide dropped-cill sedilia with squinch arches and fragments of a
segmental-pointed and traceried arch above it. On the seat is a repositioned
C14 tomb slab with cross-shaft. Pointed and shafted chancel arch. Large nave
of c.1360 with tall 2-light windows, an ogee-headed piscina and moulded north
and south doorways. Outside the south door is an ogee-headed stoup. South
porch of late C14 is shafted and hood-moulded, and above is a niche for the
image of the Virgin Mary, ogee-headed pinnacled and buttressed. Large late
C14 west tower with 3-light west window and grotesque gargoyles. The plinth
and buttresses have chequer patterning in flushwork. The ringing chamber
floor is original, supported on massive arch braces and corbels carved with
grotesques. A rood loft stairway with 2 doorways in the north wall. The
chancel roof was rebuilt 1656 as carved with the initials J.H., F.G. and T.C;
5 bays with arch-braced tiebeams and pierced drop-finials at the centre of
each. The nave roof was rebuilt 1923 in 6 bays with plain alternating
hammerbeam and queenpost trusses; one beam bears the date 1652. Some good
stained glass in the chancel windows believed to date from 1410; other glass
in the south nave windows. Octagonal mid C14 font; each face of the bowl is
gabled and pinnacled and at each corner a buttress rises from a human head.
The rim is embattled. Two C19 benches in the chancel have reused poppyhead
ends and the fronts have C14 blind tracery. Late C17 altar rails. In the
chancel are 3 marble floor slabs, one dated 1692, another 1584. Painted arms
of George I.

Listing NGR: TM0030557653

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526097

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper