Church of St Mary the Virgin

Details

TL 5562 SWAFFHAM BULBECK HIGH STREET (West Side) 16/135 Church of St Mary the Virgin 19. 8.1959 formerly listed as Church of St Mary) I

Parish church, C13, except for the chancel and aisles which, although C13 in origin, were rebuilt in C14. Much of the clunch work has been restored, including the tracery to many of the windows. Mostly clunch with some limestone, slate and tiled roofs. West Tower of clunch with limestone dressings to quoins and buttresses. Three stages with a splayed plinth and blocked parapet with a main cornice retaining four original beast gargoyles. The fenestration and bell chamber openings are all C13 with double chamfers in two centred arches, and includes a West window of three lancets in a two-centred arch. Three stage angle buttressing. The nave is also of clunch, but the clerestorey was added in C15 and is of pebble and flint. The roof is of shallow pitch. Each side of clerestorey has four windows, each of two cinquefoil lights in four centred heads. The South aisle, C14, is of clunch on a sill of flint with an upper edge of limestone. The fenestration is C14 of clunch, badly worn, but with original reticulated tracery, including an East window of three lights. The stonework of the South porch has been rendered. Outer arch two-centred and of two chamfered orders. Inner arch of two wave moulded orders in two centred arch with label and mask stops. The chancel has a flint sill but the walls are rendered and probably of clunch. All the windows have been restored. Interior. The nave arcade is in four bays. Two centred arches of two chamfered orders with a continuous roll moulded label. The columns are octagonal and have moulded capitals and bases. The roof is C15 of shallow pitch and of side purlin construction with a ridge piece. There are four bays and a narrower bay to the East. The tie-beams and intermediate principal rafters are carried on wall posts, those of the intermediate principal wall posts are shortened above the clerestorey windows, and there is arch bracing from the posts to the tie beams. There are bosses at the intersections of the main beams, and the tie beams and principal rafters are moulded. The North and South aisles were rebuilt at about the same time. Each has a moulded band at sill height terminating in a mask stop at the side of the opposing North and South doorways. The rear arches of the C14 windows in the aisles have hollow moulding terminating in broach stops. North of the chancel arch is the roof loft staircase entry. The chancel has been much restored but retains a three-seat sedilia originally of clunch, now mostly Ketton. Each bay in an ogee arch with running foliate ornament terminating in a finial, and flanked by shafts with crocketed finials. Apart from two or three benches, the nave and aisles are almost completely furnished with intact C15 pews, including two bench fronts, and, in the North aisle, probably part of the originally uprights into which the bench end were jointed to the wall. The rails are roll moulded and the ogee shaped pew ends have elbows and embattled finials carved with fabulous beasts. The font is C13 and of stone. Octagonal on an octagonal stem. There is a fine C16 Italian cassone of cedar wood in the South chapel.

R.C.H.M. (North East Cambs.), p96, mon (1) Pevsner (Buildings of England

Listing NGR: TL5552862248

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

49434

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire, (1954)

Other
An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Cambridgeshire North East, (1972)

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