St Mary the Virgin, Great Wymondley
Parish church. Early C12 nave and chancel, C15 raised nave roof and W tower. Restored 1883-4 by Joseph Clarke adding N vestry and rebuilding S porch. Restoration 1977. Flint rubble, nave faced in coursed flints and pebbles with a few Roman tiles. Some herringbone work in coursed pebbles around apse. Uncoursed knapped flints to vestry. Limestone dressings. Ancaster stone used in C19 restoration. Steep red tile roofs, half-conical with gablet to apse, pyramidal to tower with weathercock and vane. Low-pitched metal roof to nave behind parapet. Small church with apsidal chancel (one of 3 remaining in the county), crenelated unaisled nave, tall crenelated W tower, gabled S porch, and small lean-to vestry against the N wall of the nave entered by the old N door. The chancel is 20ft x 16ft with a semi-circular plan apse. Boarded waggon ceiling with rib at start of hemi-cycle of apse. Encaustic patterns in red tiled floor. Mosaic in carpet pattern around altar. C14 traceried 3-lights E window with square head. Single C13 lancet window in N wall fitted into C12 splayed opening with round headed rear-arch. C13 lancet and low-side window in S wall. Early C12 chancel arch, semi-circular head with heavy roll-moulding, engaged shafts, capitals with primitive ovolutes on the W angles, chamfered and recessed bead ornamented imposts, scallop bases and chamfered plinths. Wooden altar rail on iron standards. C13 piscina with angle shafts and square head. Aumbry with door rebate in SW corner. Tall 5-bays nave has external stringcourses where walls heightened for late C15 roof and 2 taller pointed S windows. These are of three stepped lights. The open timber roof has a plain ridge and one purlin to each slope, moulded wallplates and wallposts rising from stone corbels carved as heads (2 beasts appear Romanesque; 2 fine heads on N side). Curved braces to moulded tie-beams supporting the purlins directly and the ridge by short king-posts with curved axial braces. 2-lights C14 ogee traceried window in N wall. C14 N doorway with segmental rear-arch now gives access to vestry. Ornamented Romanesque S entrance c.1120 with heavy roll-moulded round arch, all-over grid of chip-carved ornament to tympanum and abacus, jambs of 2 orders, the angles of the cushion capitals of the shafts of the outer order having rudely carved faces, and inverted scallop bases like the chancel arch. Through the N abutment of the chancel arch is a low C15 squint into the chancel. Above it is a corbel for the former rood loft of which the stair remains in the thickness of the wall on the NE with narrow pointed doors the lower rebated for a door, the upper chamfered. There is a trefoil-headed niche for an image set in the E wall to the N of the chancel arch, possibly for a nave altar. Nearby is a floor slab to Henry Barnewell, d.1638. Plain stone font probably C15 with flared octagonal bowl, chamfered offset to fat octagonal shaft on hollow-moulded base and octagonal step. Oak C19 cover with vigorous ironwork of Romanesque/Arts and Crafts style. Pews at W end of nave C15 or early C16 with buttress pilasters. On an external SE quoin of the nave an incised sundial. The C15 tower arch is 4-centred with 2 moulded orders, the outer with a continuous wave moulding, the inner on jamb shafts with octagonal caps and bases. The square 3-stages W tower has string courses, diagonal buttresses and a winding stair in the wall in the NW angle entered by an internal door. Old plank door with old painted lettering in narrow pointed opening with continuous moulding. Off-centre 3-lights pointed W window with cinquefoil lights, and transom to centre light. Pointed W doorway of 2 moulded orders. Slot window to stage below the bells. 2-lights belfry opening on each face of the tower with pointed head and Y-tracery. Gargoyle above each opening in string course at base of crenelated parapet. (RCHM (1911)105: VCH (1912)185-6: Kelly (1914)295: Pevsner (1977)153-4).
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