The Church

St Mary’s is a grade 1 church in the heart of the village adjacent to the manor. The Lych Gate was built as the village war memorial and a tablet inside on the north wall of the church records the names of the dead.

The earliest parts are the nave and south aisle which date to the late 13th century. A beam in the north porch has a 13th century dogtooth ornament. The chancel is early 14th century, and the nave rood and some of the pews are 15th century.

An inventory of 1552 notes the church had a lead covered roof and steeple and a tiled porch and three bells, one of which remains in the open bellcote. The steeple was taken down around and replaced with a brick tower with corner pinnacles and a pyramidal roof, probably in the eighteenth century.  At that date a gallery existed under the belfry. In 1836 the church had new pews installed and the south doors were stopped up.

By 1845 the church as "in very bad condition". White's survey of 1866 prepared the way for restoration in 1867 with considerable work on the chancel, walls and roof and the erection of the current bellcote in place of the old brick tower.

A vestry was added in 1900 in memory of Reverend Peter Charnock Smith who is also remembered in a stained glass window fitted in 1901. More stained glass was added to the north side of the nave in 1921. The Victorian fittings in the chancel were removed in 1971.