Listed Building: Church of St. Mary the Virgin (11/125)

Church. C13-C15, altered late C18/early C19. Body of church rebuilt 1873 and otherwise restored by Charles Buckeridge at cost of £3,000. Coursed ironstone rubble and coursed squared ironstone with ironstone and limestone dressings, plain-tile and lead roofs. Chancel, organ chamber/vestry, aisled nave, south porch and west tower. 3-bay chancel has 3-light east window with C19 reticulated tracery, a 2-light window to north with C19 Decorated tracery and pair of similar windows to south all with hood moulds; diagonal off-set buttresses and stone-coped east gable with kneelers. C19 vestry/organ chamber continues north aisle and has 3-light window to east and north, the latter with straight head, both with hood moulds. Nave has 3-bay clerestory of 1873; 2-light windows with straight heads and hood moulds and plain stone-coped parapet. Aisles have 2-light windows with C19 Decorated style tracery, except for 3-light east window to south aisle with C19 intersecting tracery, all with hood moulds, and plain stone-coped parapets. South aisle overlaps chancel. South door of c.1200 has one order of shafts with leaf-crocket capitals, moulded imposts and round arch with two flat steps; stone to arch of alternating limestone and ironstone. South porch has doorway with 2 orders of polygonal shafts, moulded capitals and triple-chamfered arch. Tower has 3 stages. Pair of C19 cusped 1-light windows to west with hood moulds and chamfered lancet window to next stage north side. C13 former bell-chamber stage has 5 blank arches to each side with round shafts and blocked chamfered lancet windows flanking central blank arch. C15 top stage has 2-light bell-chamber openings with Decorated tracery and hood moulds. Off-set angle buttresses and quatrefoil frieze of limestone to base of battlemented parapet. Interior: chancel has 2-seat sedilia grouped with piscina with ogee-arched heads to arches and trefoils to spandrels. Double-chamfered arches to former north and south chancel chapels with polygonal responds. Similar chancel arch. Nave has 3-bay arcades probably both of 1873, with octagonal piers, polygonal responds and double-chamfered arches. Triple-chamfered tower arch. Font has circular bowl with flat attached shafts carrying rough single-scallop capitals, supported by four octagonal colonnettes round central bar stop-chamfered support. C18 charity board. 3 stalls in chancel, possibly continental with winged lion arms and lion's feet. C19 reredos with terracotta panels. C19 stain-glass windows to chancel; east window by Clayton & Bell, c.1873. Monuments: wall monument of coloured marbles to William Ward, d.1737, his wife Bridget, d.1735 and their 7 children erected 1775 by their two surviving daughters Mary and Dorothy by William Cox of Northampton with apron, obelisk background, cartouche of arms and lamp finials. (Buildings of England: Northamptonshire: 1973, pp293-5; VCH: Northamptonshire: Vol IV, 1937, pp269-270; Little Houghton Coronation Scrapbook, 1953)

Record last edited

Oct 30 2012 3:57PM