2932

 

II*  

Designated  

01/03/1963  

29/02/1996  

Parish Church of St Mary  

 

Newport  

Marshfield  

 

Marshfield  

326166  

182573  

 

Set on the N side of Church Lane opposite Church Farm, leading off Marshfield Road. The church is surrounded by a low rubble wall with cock and hen coping; lych gate to W and remains of medieval cross base to S, now with modern timber cross.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Parish Church, Early English origins with various phases of C19 and C20 restoration. Said to have been built in 1135 by the Countess Mabel, in memory of her father, Robert Fitzhamon, Norman Lord of Glamorgan and Wentlooge. W tower and S porch added in C15 (restored in 1902). In 1867 the nave roof was replaced; in 1924 the chancel was re-roofed. In 1909 the church was re-fenestrated and refurnished in Jacobethan style. Modern vestry linked to N side in 1984.  

Church consists of chancel, nave, battlemented W tower, S porch and vestry to N of chancel with modern linked vestry to N of nave. Constructed of random red sandstone. Coped gables to nave, chancel, S porch and N vestry with cross finials. Slate clad roofs to chancel and vestry, red clay tiles to nave. All fenestration dates from the C19 restoration in Perpendicular style, with square heads and hoodmoulds to nave and chancel. E window is of three-lights with Perpendicular tracery to the head, under simple hoodmould. Small priests door to S side of chancel. S porch is C15, re-roofed in 1902; Round-headed doorway, complexly moulded with fleurons and flanking colonnettes, perhaps formerly continued into an ogee canopy; voussoired relieving arch. Small C19, cusped lancet above with niche over. The W tower is Perpendicular, with an embattled parapet rising from a corbel table, strong batter to base. W doorway is C15, complexly moulded under projecting hoodmould with label stops. The W window consists of three, cusped lights, with Decorated interlacing tracery above, hoodmould with human head stops. Pairs of cusped, louvered belfry lights to each face of tower. N side of the nave is lit by three sets of cusped two-light windows. To the E end is a stair outshut with slated roof to former rood loft. Vestry adjoining chancel is C19 with square-headed doorway to W side, two small lancets to N side with lancet in the gable and a large, capped chimney on the E elevation with small lancet to left hand side.  

Early English, 2-order, chancel arch with paired shafts; capitals carved with still-leaf decoration and crocketts. The tall tower arch is Perpendicular and continuously moulded. Chancel roof is arch-braced and dates from early part of C20. The similar, arch-braced, nave roof is C19 with gilded bosses; originally springing from stone corbels. The furnishings are in the Jacobethan style; including good oak pulpit with sounding board. The font is octagonal, of Portland stone, decorated with quatrefoils inset with black marble. The bowl is supported on four black marble shafts with stiff-leaf capitals and moulded bases, set on two octagonal steps. The reredos was erected in 1883 by Sir George Forestier Walker. It is ogee arched with three central crocketted and pinnacled niches, flanked by three lower, blind arches with quatrefoils above and cornice over. In the central aisle, at the W end of the nave is an immersion baptistery, concealed, white tiled with a red calvary cross on the floor, probably inserted during the restoration of 1909. Nave, S side, has fine marble monument to members of the Webb family with inscriptions flanking central bronze relief of life and death.  

Graded II* for the special interest of its surviving medieval fabric.