Description

TL 41 SW GILSTON GILSTON LANE
(east side )

2/32 Parish Church of
St Mary
24.1.67

GV I

Parish church. Later C13 incorporating early C13 N doorway.
Upper part of tower and projecting stair C16. Restored 1852 by P
C Hardwick for John Hodgson of Gilston Park (Kelly (1914) 105)
when S aisle rebuit, and S porch and vestry added (VCH (1912)
322). The church of a deserted medieval village. Chancel and
nave continuous, N and S aisles with 4-bay arcades and separate
roofs, W tower and spire, S porch and N vestry. Flint rubble
walling with stone dressings, steep old red tile roof and gable
parapets with moulded stone copings and kneelers. E wall
plastered. From 7 metres height tower in C16 red brick with 3
sided brick stair projection on S with brick roof (cf
Sawbridgeworth Church), reset C14 windows, flint-faced embattled
parapet and slender octagonal reticulated lead spire. Low
pitched slated roofs to aisles. Cl9 S aisle in uncoursed knapped
flints with random stone blocks and Bath stone dressings. C19
gabled tiled vestry of uncoursed field flints with stone
dressings. C19 tiled timberframed S porch with elaborate carved
bargeboard and gable, and dressed stone plinth. S doorway C19 in
early English style. W doorway of late C13 with shafted jambs
and moulded arch of 3 orders. Blocked fine early C13 N doorway
with greenish stone shafted jambs to outside, moulded head and
weathered leaf capitals. Lancet windows generally, those at W
end of chancel in N and S walls have unusually low sills. 2-
light window in N aisle with elementary plate tracery and trefoil
top. The E angle of the N aisle is chamfered. C19 roof with
arch-braced collar trusses defining 4 nave bays with plain stone
corbels and 3 chancel bays, boarded under the rafters, on carved
corbels. Arcading of important late C13 wooden screen reframed
in C19. C13 double piscina with central marble shaft and
hexagonal cusped blind figure in spandrel (with plaster rose
applied later). Encaustic tile surrounds to memorial floor
slabs. E wall has C19 painted diaper decoration by Percy Bacon
Bros. Quatrefoil C13 stone nave pillars with low pointed arches.
Hexagonal C12 Purbeck marble font bowl with blind arcading, on
later base. Late C16 tower arch with 1 shaft to each jamb. 2
fine mural monuments, Bridget Gore d 1657; and Sir John Gore d
1659 by Joshua Marshall. 2 stone coffin lids on floor of N aisle
probably C14. A late C13 parish church, preserved from
destructive enlargement by desertion of the village, with
features, fittings and monuments of great interest and a C13
wooden screen of outstanding importance. An important landmark
and the centre of a mixed architectural group. (EHAS Trans
(1902) 57-60: RCHM (1911) 91-2: VCH (1912) 322-3: Pevsner
(1977) 146).

Listing NGR: TL4398113526

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Parish Church of St Mary at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17528984

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.

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