Description

MORCOTT
SK 90 SW CHURCH LANE (East side)
5/94
Church of St. Mary
10.11.55

GV I
Parish Church, largely of C12 to C13 with some later additions and alterations.
Tower, nave with clerestory and 2 aisles, chancel. C12 west tower, now rendered
over except for quoins and dressings, embattled, three stages. West door is
Norman, with paired heavily sculpted shafts and cushion capitals, its top was
altered in C14 to a pointed arch, and the outer shafts carry the outer arch of
a paired traceried light above. In the second stage is a heavily moulded Norman
oculus, cut by a C14 traceried niche. Single round headed light on south wall
also. Paired C14 traceried lights to bell chamber. Stumpy spire above. South
aisle, clerestory and chancel are of coursed rubble. Windows in aisle are decorated
paired traceried lights. South door is C12, a round arch, with flat voussoirs
and chamfered architrave very plain. The porch is C14 with coped gable and double
chamfered archway with hoodmould and corbel heads. Ball flower frieze on its
east wall. Clerestory is corbelled out slightly on west wall, indicating its
later build and has paired lights with squared heads and stilted hoodmoulds.
Frieze with small faces etc. Remains of finials on copings. Buttressed chancel
has small round arched priests door with voussoirs, similar to south doorway,
and decorated traceried lights, tall lowside window to south with paired lancets
and unfoiled circle. North chapel has pointed arched doorway with carved heads
as corbels and at apex. Both this and the north aisle are of squared rubble,
they are a different build from the rest of the fabric and the result of a
restoration of 1874.

Inside, the Church is mostly Norman, with tower arch and nave arcade of two bays,
late C12 to early C13. Tower arch and north arcade have round roll-moulded arches
on circular piers, and the tower arch has smaller shafts to responds as well.
Cruciform abaci and capitals of arcade are richly carved with foliage crockets
and masks, each different, with interlace on the easternmost, and a tall chevron
to the west. South arcade is slightly later, still round arched but more simply
moulded with double chamfer and round abaci, and sparser crockets etc. The chancel
arch is later still, Early English pointed, double chamfered, with nail head
decoration in the responds. The chancel is very spacious and has an Early English
arch to north chapel, and a C17 altar table. The pulpit is Elizabethan, richly
carved with blank arcading. Fragments of an earlier stall and lectern survive
with poppy-head decoration. Tomb recess in south aisle contains an incised slab,
C15. Foiled agee piscina also in south aisle. Font has a plain square basin
with chamfered corners making it almost an octagon. Two hatchments over tower
arch. C15 timbered king post roof to nave.

Listing NGR: SK9246300786

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of St Mary at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17529532

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

• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)