The church of ST. MARY THE VIRGIN consists of a chancel 40 ft. 9 in. by 21 ft. 6 in., nave of equal width and 84 ft. 10 in. long, north and south aisles 15 ft. 6 in. wide, south porch and a west tower 16 ft. square. These measurements are all internal.
The building is almost wholly of the 15th century, but part of the west wall of the tower and doubtless the core of its other walls are of much earlier date, probably of the 12th century. On either side of the present arch from the nave are a few springing stones of the outer order and label of an earlier arch with a round head. Over these, and seen inside the church, are the lower weather stones of a former steep-gabled roof to the nave. In the rebuilding of the fabric the nave and present tower were evidently the first to be displaced, beginning with the tower about 1420 and followed immediately by the rest. That the tower was finished before the aisles is suggested by the straight joints formed in the aisle walls by the side buttresses of the tower, though constructionally it would be right to make these straight joints even if all the work were contemporary. The chancel was added about 1470. The delay in continuing the rebuilding may probably be accounted for by the great expense incurred in the construction of a basement below the chancel, necessitated by the shelving nature of the ground at the east end, a work which must have swallowed up a large proportion of the money in hand. What form the chancel arch took we have now no evidence beyond the note taken by Sir Stephen Glynne about 1833, (fn. 242) in which he describes it as low and having been altered. The present arch is modern. Restorations have been carried out three times in the last century, in 1844, 1877 and 1899, but much of the original stone work of the windows and other parts remains.
The partly restored east window of the chancel is of five cinquefoiled lights under a traceried fourcentred head. On either side of the window inside are shallow trefoiled image niches. The two side windows have each three cinquefoiled lights under traceried four-centred heads; these are all partly restored. Between the two north windows is a doorway, with the original 15th-century door, leading down to the basement chamber. This chamber has an elliptical vault and is 24 ft. 3 in. in length. It has an original square-headed window of two lights in the south wall and a later and larger insertion in the east wall of three lights under a pointed segmental head. The room was formerly used as a schoolroom, and now serves as a vestry and parish room. Below the first south window of the chancel is a piscina with a cinquefoiled four-centred head. West of it are three sedilia with cinquefoiled round heads. The jambs are moulded and the spandrels between the arches and the cornice are carved with foliage. Buttresses with moulded offsets topped by somewhat perished crocketed pinnacles separate and flank the sedilia. The cornice is embattled and enriched by carved square flowers. The priest's doorway in the south wall has a four-centred head and moulded jambs and label. It has been partly restored. The fourcentred chancel arch is moulded, the inner order springing from corbel shafts.
The nave arcades are each of six bays. The piers have four engaged shafts with moulded capitals and bases separated by hollow chamfers. The arches are two-centred, each well moulded and with moulded labels. The two small rolls and hollow on the soffits of the arches are a peculiar feature. The clearstory windows are all original, but have been much restored. There are six on either side, each of three cinquefoiled lights under a traceried four-centred head.
All the aisle windows resemble one another, but differ from and are earlier in character than those of the chancel. There is one in each end wall and five on the north and south, all with three cinquefoiled lights under traceried two-centred heads, and all more or less restored. In the east wall of the south aisle is a moulded image bracket on a corbel carved as an angel with a shield, and in the south a plain pointed piscina which served the former side chapel said to have been dedicated to St. Anne. Both the north and south doorways, which occupy the fifth of the six bays, have moulded jambs and two-centred arches of similar detail. The woodwork of the south doorway is of original 15th-century date. The large door is divided into six feathered trefoiled panels with rose cusp points and tracery over filling the two-centred head of the door, and is pierced by a small wicket door with a four-centred head and panelled face. The back of the door was strengthened in the 18th century, and on the iron hinges of the wicket is inscribed 'i bell 1747.' On the back of the wicket is a large wood lock 20 in. by 10 in., said to have been formerly on the door in the chancel. On the large door is also a curious old square padlock.
Inclosing the south doorway is a porch of slightly later date, which has a room over it originally entered by a square-headed doorway from the aisle, now blocked. The present access is by a modern stair-turret in the north-west corner of the porch. The room is lighted by windows to the east, south and west, each of two cinquefoiled lights under a square head. All are more or less restored. The pointed outer doorway of the porch is modern. The porch was originally intended to be vaulted. In the two south corners are the moulded corbels and springing stones of the moulded ribs, but there are no answering springers on the aisle wall.
The tower is of three stages with square angle buttresses of many stages, divided by moulded stringcourses and reaching almost to the parapet string. The tower arch is similar to the nave arcades, but has three orders instead of two. There is no west doorway. The west window is old and has three cinquefoiled lights under a traceried two-centred head. Over the window is a niche with a four-centred head containing old carved stone figures of the Blessed Virgin and Child. Above this is a small light with a plain four-centred head cutting the moulded string dividing the first and second stages.
The second stage is blank except for a clock dial towards the south. The third or bell-chamber is lighted in each wall by a window of three plain ogeeheaded lights under a traceried four-centred head with moulded label. The parapet of the tower (like those of the chancel, nave, aisles and porch) is embattled and pierced by trefoiled openings. Above the tower parapet were formerly eight pinnacles, those in the middle being set diagonally. Above the buttresses which divide the side walls of the chancel, nave and aisles are pinnacles, those of the chancel buttresses being set diagonally. In the buttresses against the east wall of the nave, which rise from and are flush with the chancel walls, are feathered panels level with the chancel parapet. At the south-east of the tower, level with the nave parapet, is a shield charged with a cross paty.
The low gabled roof of the chancel is of modern date, in imitation of the more steeply pitched 15thcentury roof of the nave. The latter has open twocentred cradled rafters; the panels formed by the trusses and purlins are traceried and carved in the angles, and have carved foliated bosses at their intersections. The trusses rest on modern stone corbels. The aisle roofs are of similar character and date.
The altar table has legs carved with beasts of dragon-like appearance holding consoles, also carved with beasts' heads. The top rail is carved with shallow ornament with human heads at intervals and bosses at the corners. All this work is of foreign appearance, but a lower top rail, inserted later, is of 17th-century workmanship. It has two oval piercings at the end and strapwork panelling between.
The eastern bay of each aisle is inclosed by restored screens of 15th-century date. In their upper portions are open lights with moulded mullions and trefoiled ogee heads with tracery above. The cornices, which are carved with foliage, are mostly modern. In the lower part of the screen facing west in the south aisle is a moulded and embattled middle rail, with a few traceried panels below differing from the upper ones, and more like the old panelled bench-ends, of which there are several in the south aisle, all with rosetted cusp points. Standing against the organ, which fills the end bay of the north aisle, are four tall bench-ends of early 17th-century date, now made up into two pieces. The first is carved with a fleur de lis design, and has at the top a lion passant chained and collared; the second has a thistle design and at the top a unicorn. Between the animals is a shield of late form with the arms, a fesse with a lion over all quartering a bend with three billets thereon between two roundels. The first standard of the second piece has a unicorn with its head defaced, the second nothing; in the middle a shield bears the arms of Askew with a pierced molet for difference, impaling three calves' heads for Metcalfe.
The font is a modern octagonal one of stone with panelled sides. The tall canopied cover over it has some 15th-century tabernacle work in its upper part.
In the east window of the south aisle are many fragments of old glass, much of it collected from other windows and set here with an admixture of modern ruby and blue glass regardless of design. In the first or north light starting from the bottom are an angel with a shield of France and England and a scroll bearing the words 'dieu et moun drot,' a crowned female head, a bearded head, a fragment of an inscribed scroll with 'Osgodby' in small letters above, two asses in the borders, a sun, the feathered body of a headless angel, and an angel with a scutcheon charged with the arms of Darcy. In the head is canopy work. At the foot of the middle light is the fragment of an inscription 'Orate pro bono statu . . . uxoris . . .' (between the last two words is 'Elizabet,' which apparently does not belong here); above this a figure of St. Leonard, heads of ladies and tonsured priests, fragments of small figures of an Annunciation, the figures (named) of St. Anna and St. Cleophas, and canopy work with fragments of pinnacles and buttresses on each side, among which are several eagles. The south light has an angel with the arms of Mowbray, fragments of bearded heads, a head of our Lord, a winged and feathered angel, an angel with the arms of Strangways and canopy work. In the tracery is an angel bearing a shield of Bishop William Askew (Aiscough) of Salisbury with a mitre or on the fesse; a shield of Askew, with a crescent for difference; an angel with a shield of Meynell; another with a shield Argent three roundels between two bends gules with a chief sable for Orrell; Askew with the difference of a molet and pattern of a sun on an oak tree. There is also a figure of St. Giles and the kneeling figure of a bishop, probably Askew, with the words 'S[anct]e Egidi ora pro nobis.' Both are under canopies.
The west window of the north aisle also has some old heraldic glass in its tracery, among which are France and England, Askew with a molet, and the same with a mitre or, both borne by angels; a sexfoil, a rose, and the figures of St. Catherine and St. Margaret.
On the clearstory walls are 17th-century paintings of the Apostles, some of which have had their names restored. Those on the north side, reading from the east, are: 1, St. James the Less; 2, St. Jude; 3, St. Philip; 4, St. Thomas; 5, St. Matthew; on the south side: 1, St. Andrew with cross; 2, a figure holding a spear or cross; 3, St. James the Great; the others are gone. Over the north doorway is a painting on canvas of the Incredulity of St. Thomas, by Annibale Caracci, given by Mr. George Anderson in 1899. In the porch are the fragments of a 13thcentury cross head, probably from a gable.
The only old monument is a defaced brass in the south aisle to Robert Thresk, rector of Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, who, as the inscription states, founded a chantry in the church of Thirsk. The inscription is in two portions, with the half-length figure of Robert Thresk, supported by angels, between. Much of it is now illegible, but the portions in brackets are given on the authority of Dugdale and Dodsworth. (fn. 243) The upper plate reads: 'hic jacet Rob'tus Thresk cl'icus nup' Rector Eccl[es]ie de Boseworth [fundator istius cantarie et rememorator regis in scc'io] qui obiit xvii kl Dece[m]br Ao d[omi]ni moccccoxix cui' a[n]i[ma]e p[ro]picietur d[eu]s amen.' On the lower plate are the following hexameters:—
'Es testis xpe q[uo]d [non] jacet hic lapis iste Corpus ut [ornetur sed spiritus ut] memoretur hic tu qui trans'is [vir vel] mulier puer an sis pro me funde p'ces qi a sic michi sit venie spes.'
There are eight bells: the treble and second by Mears & Co., 1871; the third and fourth, the same founders, 1864; fifth, George Dalton, York, 1775; sixth, Thomas Mears, 1803; seventh, by Samuel Smith the younger of York, inscribed 'Voco veni precare' and dated 1729; the tenor is the wellknown dated pre-Reformation bell and is inscribed in Gothic capitals, + anno: milleno: quater: cento: quoque: dec: est hec: camp: ana: jesus.
The plate consists of two cups, two patens, a flagon and baptismal bowl, all of silver, a pewter flagon and an electro-plated almsdish. The larger cup is of 1631, with the maker's mark, C.M., for Christopher Mangey of York; the smaller is inscribed 'Laus Deo,' and probably belongs to the late 17th century. It bears the maker's mark R.W. for Robert Williamson of York. The larger paten is dated 1725, the other is of Russian workmanship, very ancient, and was presented by Mrs. Watts of Sowerby. The baptismal bowl, of German make, is probably of the early 17th century. The pewter flagon bears no date. The almsdish and silver flagon are both modern and there is also a small modern paten.
The registers begin in 1555.
(from A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2. Published by Victoria County History, London, 1923)
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