Grade I Heritage Walk: Walking to Church Of St Mary from The King’s Head — 2.2-Mile Circular via North Downs Way

TR 04 NE CRUNDALE 6/23 Church of St. Mary 27.11.57 GV I Parish church. C12, C13, C14 and C15 details, restored 1894 by Loftus Brock. Flint and dressed stone, plain tile roof. Nave and north aisle, chancel, north tower and north porch. Exterior: plank and stud west door with chamfered surround and drip mould within 2 very deep offset buttresses. A 3-light C15 Perp. window over with ogival mullions, basket arch and deeply moulded dripmould. South nave wall rendered, with 1 chamfered lancet, 1 restored 3-light C15 window and 1 trefoil-headed lancet, with C19 offset buttressing. Chancel inset and roof steps down from nave. To west large blocked arch. One C14 2-light window, with depressed arched heads and hollow-moulded cinquefoil over, and 1 cusped single light. East window and wall of flint and ashlar, dated 1894, east window 4-light C19 curvilinear-style. North wall with 1 C19 decorated-style 2- light window. Tower with red brick top stage and lead spire. Blocked opening on north to chancel cellar, lancet over and brick belfry opening over that. South wall with C19 doorway, evidence of blocked original doorway to west of it, with lancet over and 2-light C19 window above again, and single square light on west face. Gabled north porch of flint, and ashlar quoins and bands, and 2 half-glazed C19 doors, with dripmould over. Nave aisle wall with 3 C19 cusped windows. Interior: 2 bay unmoulded Romanesque arcade to north aisle with restored capitals, cut through the original exterior wall hence the earlier Romanesque window over the arcade. North tower intrudes into nave at an angle, corbelled to carry nave wall plate, with the rood stair built into the tower. Roof of 2 crown posts on canted tie beam. North door with moulded and carved wood lintel. Chancel inset and with lower ceiling – tie beam carries both nave crown post and gable wall of chancel, with cusped panelled framing. The tower again supports the wall plate, at a higher level than elsewhere in the chancel. Fittings: early C14 ogee-headed sedile in chancel with attached octagonal shafts, water holding bases, undercut capitals and curved head stops. Plain chamfered piscina. Altar with reredos of 1704, with scrolled frieze. Altar rails of 1702, restored. Water stoup by north door. Coat of Arms in north-west wall of nave 1710. Monuments: wall plaques in chancel to Filmer family (1810 – 1859), and nave floor slabs to Carter family of Winchcombe, 1662. Large alabaster slab in aisle, 6′ x 3′, with incised figure and latin inscription, to John Sprot, d. 9th December 1466, Rector 1431 – 66. Glass: fragments in south windows in nave and chancel, the latter a roundel of the Virgin c. 1300. (see B.O.E. Kent II, 278). Listing NGR: TR0800749049