Church of St Mary

Details

RUNWELL

719/21/465 RUNWELL ROAD 10-APR-67 Church of St Mary

I Anglican church. Stands in an uncleared churchyard. C13 S arcade, remainder of the church Perpendicular with two C15 porches; Chancel lengthened by 2 bays in 1907. Stone rubble and flint with red tiled roofs and timber-framed porches. The 1907 chancel extension has snecked masonry below the window sills and stone band at sill level. Plan of nave and chancel, W tower, S aisle under a gabled roof, N and S porches, SE vestry under a catslide roof.

EXTERIOR: N side to the road. Chancel with angle buttresses and a 3-light E window with trefoil-headed lights. The S side of nave and chancel with buttresses with set-offs. Square-headed windows to the S side of the chancel and N and S sides of the nave, some of the nave windows medieval. Good Perpendicular 4-stage W tower with diagonal buttresses with many set-offs, an embattled parapet and projecting SE stair turret. This is rectangular on plan at the base but has splayed corners for the upper 2 stages. The turret rises above the tower parapet and also has an embattled parapet. Moulded W doorway and 3-light W window with intersecting cusped tracery; one light trefoil-headed windows to the next stage and 2-light belfry windows with cionquefoil-headed lights. There is a low-set arch in the wall to W of the N porch. The tower has some modest polychromatic detail with a knapped flint band above the plinth and knapped flint detail to the buttresses. Shingled recessed spire with a lead finial with a weathervane. The church preserves a pair of good timber-framed C15 porches. The N porch is on a low plinth and has an arch-braced crown post roof with carved boss and sprocketted eaves. The dado section has been renewed but the posts and sole plate are medieval. Above the dado there are moulded mullions with original tracery infill including quatrefoils. The square-headed outer doorway has carved spandrels. The S porch is similar but less decorated and has a crown post roof with cranked ties. The wall plates narrow to the S to support the verges. The plank and muntin dado is largely intact but the mullions and some of the tracery, which includes trefoils, have been replaced. The inner doorway is chamfered and contains a probably late medieval door of overlapping vertical planks with strap hinges.

INTERIOR: Canted boarded chancel roof of c 1907, divided into panels by moulded ribs. Late Gothic style chancel screen of 1909 by W F Unsworth (Pevsner). This has a wide central ogee arch arch, a coved cornice and cresting and rood figures. The nave roof appears to be largely medieval with some replacement of rafters. It is also canted with a corbelled wallplate and 3 chamfered timber ties. Late medieval ceiling to the lower stage of the tower. Triple hollow-chamfered tower arch on demi-shafts with moulded capitals. C. 1200 4-bay S arcade with circular piers and double-chamfered arches. The S aisle has an open wagon roof. The chancel has red and white marble paving, a piscina and 4-bay sedilia with polished marble shafts with foliage capitals. Probably early C20 choir stalls with shaped ends. There is a double hagioscope. Early C20 2-sided timber pulpit. Font with an octagonal stone bowl on an octagonal stem. Nave benches with square-headed ends and recessed panels. Monuments include a wall brass to Edward Sulyard, d. 1547 and his wife. This is framed by pilasters and under a pediment. Tablet to Edward Sulyard, d. 1692, signed Thomas Cartwright Junior. Fragments of medieval stained glass in one window, other stained glass includes one 1929 window signed Heaton. Butler and Bayne. Some stone and timber elements in the church were painted with bright colours in the 1940s.

A church of C13 origins with extensive medieval fabric, including the rare survival of 2 timber-framed C15 porches, both in a relatively good state of preservation.

Sources Pevsner, Essex, 1965, 330.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

426703

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of Essex South East, (1923)
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Essex, (1965), 330

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.