West Wickham, Cambridgeshire

St Mary is locked with keyholders listed; unfortunately both times I've visited the keyholders have been out - I pass it on  a fairly regular basis though so will persevere and one day I'll gain access.

Meanwhile you'll have to be content with its rather austere exterior.

UPDATE: I gained access in Sept 2011 but forgot to update the entry.

ST MARY. Flint and pebble rubble. A line of old lime trees as a screen to the N. W tower originally unbuttressed and with lancet windows. Later diagonal buttresses, Perp bell-openings and battlements. Chancel Dec with typical early C14 windows, the E window of three lights with reticulated tracery; renewed. The rest Perp. The Piscina and two niches l. and r. of the E window go with the chancel. So does the chancel arch (three-shaft responds with two very thin additional shafts between), the tower arch is triple-chamfered, dying into the jambs. - Original roofs in nave and transept. - SCREEN. Fragments in the tower arch. - BENCHES. Three plain ones with broad panelled buttresses on the fronts. - ROYAL ARMS. 1708.

 

WEST WICKHAM. It looks over the Suffolk border from its lovely hill, and has a simple church to which its people have been coming 600 years. All this time the heads of a man and woman have been looking down from niches by the east window. The same old rafters are in the roof, the children are christened at the same old font, the medieval rood stairs are still here, and the south door has its ancient latch and ring. There are parts of an old screen in the tower arch, two medieval benches with carved ends, a chest with three locks, and Jacobean pilasters on the reredos.

Flickr set.