Description

ST 9958 POTTERNE HIGH STREET
(east side)

14/142 Church of St Mary
19.3.62
GV I

Anglican Parish Church, C13 with some C15 work to tower, restored
1870-2 by E. Christian. Rubble stone with stone tiled roofs and
coped gables. A remarkably uniform E.E. design of aisleless nave,
chancel and transepts with central tower and north and south
porches. Long lancet lights throughout linked by continuous
hoodmould and sill course. Clasping buttresses. Four-window
nave with 3-light west window, 3-window chancel with 3-light east
window, 2-window transepts with two lights to north and south
walls. Transept east walls have 3 grouped lancets. Chancel
south side has low door with depressed arch. Large coped gabled
north porch with 2-chamfer pointed arch. Large ashlar south porch
with 3-buttress sides and chamfer-and-hollow moulded doorway.
Centre tower has fine ashlar bell stage with 2 large 2-light plate-
traceried bell-openings each side, infilled with C15 ashlar
panelling. Shafted colonnette between openings. C15 pierced
panelled battlements, pinnacles and polygonal south-east stair
turret.
Interior: severely regular, without carved elaboration. Sill-
course and hoodmould to windows as outside, 2-chamfer tower arches
and stepped 5-light east lancets with Purbeck shafting, the outer
two lancets blank. C19 roofs: rafter-roof with braced collars to
nave, boarded roofs with some stencilling to chancel and transepts.
Boarded tower roof with 1598 on painted panel. Fittings: chancel
has good c1870-5 stained glass in all windows but centre south
light which is of c1860. Piscina on south wall, aumbry on north
wall. South transept is blocked by large organ over vestry
screen, 1936 by Sir C. Nicholson. South window glass of c1880.
North transept has numerous plaques, on east wall various memorials
to the Grubbe family of Eastwell. C15 wood pulpit on C19 base.
Nave has C15 octagonal font on shafted base. At west end, rare
Anglo-Saxon tub font with rim inscribed in Latin (Psalm 42.1).
Above, fine carved Royal Arms, possibly C17 with Hanoverian arms
replacing Stuart. Each side of west window commandment boards and
large painted panels of Moses and Aaron from dismantled altar-piece
of 1723. Fine west window glass of c1880. Nave north door is
possibly C13, lattice-framed. On south wall plaque to Kent family -
by Nollekens, c1799, and large neo-classical memorial with female
figure by an urn, to J. Spearing, d.1831, signed E.H. Baily. Two
lancets each side have similar glass of c1902 and c1906.
Potterne was a manor of the bishops of Salisbury and pure E.E.
style has similarities to Salisbury Cathedral.
(N. Pevsner Wiltshire 1975 371)

Listing NGR: ST9955258546

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17529783

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

• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)