Description

WYMONDLEY CHURCH GREEN
TL 2128 (North side)
Great Wymondley

10/145 Church of St. Mary
27.5.68 the Virgin (C of E)
(formerly listed as Church of St Mary)

GV I

Parish church. Early C12 nave and chancel, C15 raised nave roof and W
tower. Restored 1883-4 by Joseph Clarke adding N vestry and rebuilding S
porch. Restoration 1977. Flint rubble, nave faced in coursed flints and
pebbles with a few Roman tiles. Some herringbone work in coursed pebbles
around apse. Uncoursed knapped flints to vestry. Limestone dressings.
Ancaster stone used in C19 restoration. Steep red tile roofs,
half-conical with gablet to apse, pyramidal to tower with weathercock
and vane. Low-pitched metal roof to nave behind parapet. Small church
with apsidal chancel (one of 3 remaining in the county), crenelated
unaisled nave, tall crenelated W tower, gabled S porch, and small
lean-to vestry against the N wall of the nave entered by the old N door.
The chancel is 20ft x 16ft with a semi-circular plan apse. Boarded
waggon ceiling with rib at start of hemi-cycle of apse. Encaustic
patterns in red tiled floor. Mosaic in carpet pattern around altar. C14
traceried 3-lights E window with square head. Single C13 lancet window
in N wall fitted into C12 splayed opening with round headed rear-arch.
C13 lancet and low-side window in S wall. Early C12 chancel arch,
semi-circular head with heavy roll-moulding, engaged shafts, capitals
with primitive ovolutes on the W angles, chamfered and recessed bead
ornamented imposts, scallop bases and chamfered plinths. Wooden altar
rail on iron standards. C13 piscina with angle shafts and square head.
Aumbry with door rebate in SW corner. Tall 5-bays nave has external
stringcourses where walls heightened for late C15 roof and 2 taller
pointed S windows. These are of three stepped lights. The open timber
roof has a plain ridge and one purlin to each slope, moulded wallplates
and wallposts rising from stone corbels carved as heads (2 beasts appear
Romanesque; 2 fine heads on N side). Curved braces to moulded tie-beams
supporting the purlins directly and the ridge by short king-posts with
curved axial braces. 2-lights C14 ogee traceried window in N wall. C14 N
doorway with segmental rear-arch now gives access to vestry. Ornamented
Romanesque S entrance c.1120 with heavy roll-moulded round arch,
all-over grid of chip-carved ornament to tympanum and abacus, jambs of 2
orders, the angles of the cushion capitals of the shafts of the outer
order having rudely carved faces, and inverted scallop bases like the
chancel arch. Through the N abutment of the chancel arch is a low C15
squint into the chancel. Above it is a corbel for the former rood loft
of which the stair remains in the thickness of the wall on the NE with
narrow pointed doors the lower rebated for a door, the upper chamfered.
There is a trefoil-headed niche for an image set in the E wall to the N
of the chancel arch, possibly for a nave altar. Nearby is a floor slab
to Henry Barnewell, d.1638. Plain stone font probably C15 with flared
octagonal bowl, chamfered offset to fat octagonal shaft on
hollow-moulded base and octagonal step. Oak C19 cover with vigorous
ironwork of Romanesque/Arts and Crafts style. Pews at W end of nave C15
or early C16 with buttress pilasters. On an external SE quoin of the
nave an incised sundial. The C15 tower arch is 4-centred with 2 moulded
orders, the outer with a continuous wave moulding, the inner on jamb
shafts with octagonal caps and bases. The square 3-stages W tower has
string courses, diagonal buttresses and a winding stair in the wall in
the NW angle entered by an internal door. Old plank door with old
painted lettering in narrow pointed opening with continuous moulding.
Off-centre 3-lights pointed W window with cinquefoil lights, and transom
to centre light. Pointed W doorway of 2 moulded orders. Slot window to
stage below the bells. 2-lights belfry opening on each face of the tower
with pointed head and Y-tracery. Gargoyle above each opening in string
course at base of crenelated parapet. (RCHM (1911)105: VCH (1912)185-6:
Kelly (1914)295: Pevsner (1977)153-4).

Listing NGR: TL2147528530

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of St Mary the Virgin at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17529023

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

• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)