Details
MINSTER CHURCH STREET
TR 3064-3164
(South Side)
5/17 Church of St. Mary
11-10-63
GV I
Parish church. Tower and nave C11 and C12, chancel and transepts C13.
Refenestration in partC15. Restored 1863 by Ewan Christian. Flint,
rubble, some re-used Roman brick and Caen stone dressings. Plain tiled
roofs. Chancel with C19 vestry, transepts, nave and aisles, western
tower. Three stage tower with offset pilaster buttresses, string
courses, battlements and shingled spire. Square south-eastern stair
turret, truncated and capped with spirelet. C19 Romanesque style west
doorway. Round headed tower and belfry lights. Aisles with 3 offset
buttresses, plinth, string course and battlements. Renewed C15 and C19
Perpendicular style tracery. Moulded hoods to south and north doors.
Chancel and transepts all of one design and build, with offset clasping
buttresses, moulded string course (raised around transepts), and lancet
windows, a group of 3 in chancel east wall, with round headed gable light
over. Flying buttresses to chancel and single storey vestry (to south
of chancel) added by Ewan Christian 1860's. Exterior walls with several
monumental plaques, most late C18,attached. (1 on south side, 4 on south
transept, 3 to north transept, and on tower). Interior: tower with
Romanesque window reveals on ground floor. Tower arch semi-circular on
large half-round responds with scalloped capitals, that to south with
double thickness masonry. Also double thickness with blocked Norman
windows are the westermost bays of the nave arcades-signs of late C12
rebuilding of the original church. Arcades of 5 bays. Three easternmost
of south arcade c1190 with round piers, abaci, scalloped capitals with
zig-zag and billet moulding to arches. Two eastern bays and north arcade
C 1180. Round capitals and bases to south, square abaci and waterholding
bases with spurs to north and some crocketting and dogtooth. Nave roof
of 6 crown posts, with round-headed lights to tower and 2 in nave east
gable.Crossing arches to nave and aisles, all of same pattern, with double
chamfered arch on round attached columns with moulded capitals. Transepts,
crossing and chancel all of 1 build. Two bay transepts, with roll moulded
stringcourse, attached shafts based on stringcourse supporting vault,
added in 1863though on original springing. Original vaulting in crossing,
springing from below arch capitals,quadripartite rib-vaults without ridge
rib. Chancel arch chamfered with hollow chamfered surround and attached
and keeled columns and mouldings. Four bay chancel, each bay narrower
to east, with string course and attached wallshafts, the abaci extended
to form a continuous frieze with circles and quatrefoil and trefoil
enrichment. Quadripartite rib vault springs from those attached shafts,
with keeled ribs. Triple lancet east window with deeply moulded and
beaded surrounds and paired attached shafts. Fittings: chamfered arched
aumbry with linenfold pattern door in north chancel wall. Choir stalls,
dateable 1401-19 (the name of John Curteys, rector at those dates appears
on one stall). Carved misericords and arm rests, 2 rows of 4 to the south,
10 to the north. Font and cover: C15, octagonal on moulded base. Cover,
restored, with open work panels, pinnacled,displaying shields, with scrolled
iron pulley bracket, one chain attached to the cover by a gadrooned globe
finial. Glass: East window by Willement, 1861, good quality work.
Monuments: C13 tomb chest in north transept with trelobed arcading and
incised cross, set in wall recess with roll and beaded hood mould. Thomas
Paramour d.1621. Hanging wall monument in north aisle of alabaster with
black marble plaque and figures. Thomas and his wife Mary kneeling opposite
each other with arcaded background. Frieze cornice and pediment on
Corinthian columns on strapwork brackets. The Mother Church of Thanet and
an Anglo-Saxon Minster Church. (See B.O.E. Kent II, 1983, 393-5).
Listing NGR: TR3109164255
