St Mary, Willoughby Waterleys

St Mary’s is a Grade II* parish church on Main Street in Willoughby Waterleys, Leicestershire, in the Diocese of Leicester.

Overview

Historic England records a parish church that is partly thirteenth century, though most dateable features are fourteenth century or were renewed in a fourteenth-century style during a thorough restoration in 1875. The fabric is rubble or cobble, with a west tower of coursed and squared rubble, leaded nave and aisle roofs, and Swithland slate on the chancel. The three-stage tower has a plinth, angle buttresses, paired pointed lights to the bell chamber, a renewed two-tier west window and an embattled parapet. The south wall has windows renewed in reticulated tracery, the middle one with ball-flower in the hoodmould.

The chancel is entirely of 1875, steeply roofed with ridge cresting, a three-light east window in fourteenth-century style, and a small lean-to vestry to the north. The north aisle has a steeply gabled porch around an early fourteenth-century doorway. Inside, a late thirteenth-century tower arch springs from corbels; the four-bay north arcade is largely fourteenth century, with earlier keeled east and west responds. The fifteenth-century nave roof has moulded tiebeams with carved face bosses and braces from stone corbel heads. Furnishings from the 1875 restoration include encaustic tiles, a wood pulpit and screens; the thirteenth-century font has a shallow chamfered round basin on a tall cylindrical base. A wooden reredos of 1919 has carved figures.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1180279
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St Mary