St Mary, Cumwhitton

St Mary's is a Grade II parish church in Cumwhitton, Cumbria, in the Diocese of Carlisle. The legal parish name is Cumwhitton St Mary the Virgin.

Overview

Historic England records a church that is partly twelfth century and was rebuilt in the early nineteenth century. Walls are dressed and rubble red sandstone on a chamfered plinth with raised quoins, under a slate roof. The plan is a slender three-storey west tower incorporating a porch, a three-bay nave with north aisle, and a two-bay chancel with north vestry.

The early nineteenth-century tower has plank doors, a semicircular fanlight with intersecting tracery, external stone steps to the ringing chamber, a west clock and a pyramidal roof whose weather vane is dated 1961. The nave walls are partly medieval: a filled south door has a reused zigzag-decorated stone, and there is a wall sundial. Lower courses of the chancel are probably medieval. Inside, the three-bay aisle arcade has twelfth-century round columns and arches. The plain octagonal font is dated 1662. Fittings are late nineteenth or early twentieth century. A stained-glass window by L. C. Evetts dates from 1962. The Church Heritage Record notes the north arcade as about 1200 and the church as dating from about 1160.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1087581
• Village site
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St Mary, Cumwhitton