Church of St Mary

Details

TR 2457
9/327

WINGHAM
CANTERBURY ROAD (north side)
Church of St. Mary

11.10.63

GV
I
Parish church. Circa 1200, C13 chancel, C14 tower and C16 nave and aisle. Restored 1874-75, Ferrey, particularly the chancel. Flint in part knapped and coursed with rubble stone and brick repairs and additions. Plain tiled roof. Chancel, transept chapels, nave and south aisle, western tower and south porch.

West tower with north-west stair turret and tall angle buttresses offset four times, battlements and recessed spire. Two-light Decorated belfry windows and moulded west doorway and clockface on south front. South aisle with brick upper stage, large stone blocks below the eaves set in knapped flint wall with four re-used C15 windows. Two storey battlemented porch with double hollow chamfered inner and outer doorways. Nave north wall with four buttresses and similar knapped flint and re-used C15 fenestration. North and south transepts with window heads infilled with red brick, the north transept retaining C18 wooden Venetian window and large four-light leaded window. East window of south transept in shallow projection with three lights with three circles in head enclosing three trefoils linked by intersecting tracery, c.1280. Chancel restored C19, new fenestration. Blocked double arches in north arcade to lost aisle.

Interior: tall double chamfered tower arch on octagonal responds with stylised flower ornament. Nave with five bay arcade of chestnut and one oak pier, formerly imitating stone pillars but exposed since 1874, and new arch braced to wall plate. Nave roof of four crown posts, aisle roof of six crown posts. C19 chancel arch. Originally identical arches from chancel to transepts with hollow and roll moulded and chamfered arch and attached shafts. Reveal of south transept east widow with attached marble shafts. Chancel with string course and drip moulds with heads and naturalistic leaf decoration.

Fittings: reredos, C15 stone and rare in England, from Troyes. Five scenes of the Passion above and the Last Supper and the Adoration below. Sedilia in chancel with three round headed seats and marble colonnettes. Trecusped piscina on eastern wall. Misericord stalls, three to south and four to north with C19 replacements. C14 showing animals and human faces, Green Man and foliation. Rood Screen, the base only, C15 with eight ogee traceried panels.

Square headed piscina in south aisle and chamfered elliptical wall recess said to be for tomb of a member of the Warham family. Another piscina is now on the outside of the north transept, originally in north aisle.

Early C14 stained glass in chancel south window. West window of 1920, a memorial to the last member of the Oxenden family.

Monuments: in the nave; Thomas Cinder, d.1716, large grey marble wall tablet with Death's head and Corinthian pilasters with enriched scrolls and open segmental pediment. In the north chapel; Sir Thomas Palmer, d.1625, by Nicholas Stone. Standing black and white wall monument. Full length figures of Sir Thomas and Lady Margaret on tomb chest, with Corinthian columns carrying segmental pediment with a smaller pediment thrusting through it and reclining putti with arcaded background and bracket to entablature. Sir Thomas Palmer, d.1656, erected 1718. Black and white standing wall monument with plinth, Corinthian columns to segmental pediment with putti and portrait bust at top. Streynsham Master, d.1724. White marble double wall plaque, only one half inscribed, with winged Death's head at base and tripled Corinthian pilasters supporting tripled broken segmental pediment with cartouche and martial achievements with urn over.

In the south (Oxenden) chapel; Charles Tripp, d.1624. Black pedimented wall plaque with side pieces containing two angels in oval wreathed recesses, the whole decorated with cherubs heads on wings. The Oxenden Monument, 1682, suggested as by Arnold Quellin. Free standing black and white marble monument with large white marble base inscribed and supported at the corners by black scrolls topped by ox heads, with drapes between them. Tall obelisk with fruit and flower garlands carved all down the sides and topped with a vase. Four putti at the corners, two leaning on shields, one draped, with a skull, a fourth holding a helmet.

The chapel was paved and given wrought iron screens at the same time (1681, bequest of Sir George Oxenden), with simple uprights in four panels to north with three raised sections with ball finials and central cross, the iron work leafed and bifurcated, with double leaf gate and overthrow to south and single leaf gate to old rood stair door.

Altogether a major work, certainly in Kent. The church was from 1282 to 1547 a collegiate church attached to Wingham College (which provided in its time four Archbishops and three bishops).

Listing NGR: TR2421257476

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

178359

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent, (1983), 499-500
Hussey, A, Chronicles of Wingham, (1896)

End of official list entry

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