St Mary the Virgin, Potterne
St Mary the Virgin, Potterne
St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I cruciform parish church on the High Street at Potterne, Wiltshire, a remarkably uniform Early English building with a central tower, in the Diocese of Salisbury.
- Location
- Potterne, Wiltshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Wiltshire
- City / town
- Potterne
- Address
- Potterne, Wiltshire, SN10 5NF
- Postcode
- SN10 5NF
- Built
- Thirteenth century, with fifteenth-century tower work; restored 1870–72
- Architect
- Ewan Christian (1870–72 restoration)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- Salisbury
- Parish
- Potterne
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Early English, with Perpendicular tower stage
- Materials
- Rubble stone with stone-tiled roofs and coped gables
- Grid reference
- ST 995 585
- Opening hours
- Open daily.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas
Overview
Historic England records a thirteenth-century church with some fifteenth-century work to the tower, restored in 1870–72 by E. Christian. The fabric is rubble stone with stone-tiled roofs. The plan is an aisleless nave, chancel and transepts with central tower and north and south porches. Long lancets are linked by a continuous hoodmould and sill course; clasping buttresses mark the corners. The tower has a fine ashlar bell stage with two large two-light plate-traceried openings each side, infilled with fifteenth-century ashlar panelling, and a fifteenth-century pierced panelled battlement, pinnacles and a polygonal south-east stair turret.
The interior is severely regular, without carved elaboration. Fittings noted in the listing include a painted panel dated 1598, a piscina and aumbry, and a 1936 organ screen by Sir Charles Nicholson in the south transept. Local accounts highlight an Anglo-Saxon font with a Latin inscription from Psalm 42 and a monument by Nollekens.