definitely that there was a church here in the days of
Edward the Confessor.
An avenue of sycamore trees, planted during the
incumbency of the Rev. H. R. Lloyd (1845-1850)
leads to the Southern Porch, a singularly beautiful
piece of timbered work, dating from about the
middle of the Fifteenth Century. The sides are
decorated with mullioned tracery, and the interior
of the roof has embattled beams, the principal beam
being supported by two "hammer beams," with
fine carving in the spandrels. The outer arch is
made entirely from two whole sections cut from a
tree and placed with the root-thickening uppermost.
The jambs are studded with nails, some of which
were probably used for nailing vermin—foxes,
hedgehogs, ravens, polecats, badgers, etc.—to the
church doorway in the days when the destruction
of such vermin formed an important duty of the
churchwardens. There is a holy water stoup to the
east of the doorway.
The oldest part of the nave is the western wall,
which is Norman, dating from 1140. There are two
splayed Norman windows and a doorway with plain
soffit arch ; the western face of this doorway is slightly
decorated, while the eastern is plain, suggesting
that this was originally an external doorway and that
the church then had no tower. The tower was built
towards the end of the Fourteenth Century and was
placed against the old western wall of the nave,
the builders, having regard to the shifting nature of
the soil, not venturing to risk carrying the eastern
wall of the tower on an open arch, as was usually
done. There are four buttresses against the outer
angles of the tower, each marked with a consecration
cross worked in brick. Five bells are hung in the
tower : four are dated respectively 1636, 1664, 1676,
1790, while the fifth has a pre-Reformation dedication.
The Nave is three bays in length and has a clerestory
of three two-light windows, with Cinquefoil heads,
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