St Mary, Wingham

St Mary’s is a Grade I parish church on Canterbury Road in Wingham, Kent, in the Diocese of Canterbury and the Little Stour Benefice.

Overview

Historic England records a parish church of about 1200, with a thirteenth-century chancel, fourteenth-century tower and sixteenth-century nave and aisle, restored in 1874–75 by Benjamin Ferrey, particularly in the chancel. The fabric is flint, in part knapped and coursed, with rubble stone and brick repairs and additions, under plain tiled roofs. The plan comprises chancel, transept chapels, nave and south aisle, a western tower with north-west stair turret and recessed spire, and a two-storey battlemented south porch.

Archbishop John Peckham founded a college of a provost and six canons at Wingham in the 1280s, which accounts for the church’s scale. The nave has a five-bay arcade of chestnut posts with one oak pier, completed in timber after the Dissolution when intended stone work was not finished, and roofs of crown-post construction. Fittings include fourteenth-century misericords, a fifteenth-century stone reredos said to come from Troyes, and an extensive series of Palmer and Oxenden monuments.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1070091
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St Mary, Wingham
• Little Stour Benefice