St Mary the Virgin, Burghill

St Mary's is a Grade II* parish church in Burghill, Herefordshire, in the Diocese of Hereford: a twelfth-century core enlarged through the later Middle Ages, with a west tower of 1812 and a notable font, rood screen and alabaster tomb.

Overview

Historic England lists the Church of St Mary (list entry 1099280, designated 27 January 1967). The listing records a twelfth-century core, altered and enlarged in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century and in the fourteenth, a south porch added in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, the west tower rebuilt in 1812, and further restoration and additions in 1824, 1854, 1862, 1879-80 and 1894. Walls are coursed and squared sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings under a Welsh slate roof. The three-stage west tower has an embattled parapet with pinnacles and clock faces to north and south.

The Royal Commission noted that the north wall of the chancel is partly or wholly of early twelfth-century date, that the north arcade was built from about 1200, the south arcade around 1300, and the clearstorey late in the fourteenth century. Interior fittings include a fourteenth-century rood screen (restored in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries), a twelfth-century font with figures in niches on an unusual base, and the mid-fifteenth-century alabaster chest tomb of Sir John Milbourne and Elizabeth Devereux. A brass commemorates Robert Masters (d. 1619), who travelled with Thomas Cavendish around the world.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1099280
• RCHME Herefordshire: Burghill
• Parish website