ST MARY. Quite a big church, on its own. Big Dec W tower with N and S archways and no W entrance. The archways have three continuous chamfers. Flushwork only at the base. The bell-openings are Perp. Dec chancel. The E window with plain intersected tracery, but two ogee-arched niches l. and r. of it. The SW and NW windows treated as ‘low-sides’ with a transom. On the S side also a circular window, not quatrefoiled but with a four-petal motif. SEDILIA and PISCINA are mostly the result of restoration but were clearly Dec. Pretty Dec N doorway with two thin shafts with foliage capitals and hood-mould on head-stops. Perp S aisle windows (except for the W window which is early C14).* Perp N aisle windows, Perp clerestory. A stone string-course connects them horizontally. Later brick S porch. Six-bay arcade with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. - FONT. C14 probably. Stem with ogee-arched panels. On the bowl knobbly foliage in fields variously detailed. - ROOD SCREEN. Only the dado.:]: - PARCLOSE SCREENS. To N and S chapels. - PULPIT. Jacobean, with scrolly book-rests. - BENCHES. With traceried ends, poppy-heads, and beasts and birds on the arms. Much restored. - STAINED GLASS. In several S windows a good deal of original C15 glass survives. Parts from a life of St Margaret, also from the Seven Works of Mercy, also from a Tree of Jesse. - PLATE. Almsdish c. 1700; two Flagons early C18, made at Danzig, with engraved subjects.
* A will of 1449 leaves money to the making of an aisle; one of 1452 to the making of a new window above the ‘aisle of the Holy Trinity’ ; and others of 1472 towards the making of the E window of the S aisle, and of rood stairs (ARA).
:]: Money was left towards making a new candle-beam in a will proved in 1468 (ARA).
COMBS. Its medieval church stands in the fields, a little way off the village; it has a nave, two aisles, and a clerestory. The doorway has two pillars with foliage on their capitals, and a queen’s head on the end of the arch. The great possessions of the church are the old carving on its stalls and pews and the ancient glass in its windows, most of it skilfully preserved for us after being shattered by an explosion five miles away in 1871. All the pews in the nave have carved ends, poppyheads, and figures on the arm-rests, some old and some new with all sorts of animals from Benedicite: “all ye beasts and cattle, praise ye the lord.” We noticed several rabbits, an owl and a pelican, an eagle, a lion and a bull, a dog with a muzzle, men reading and at prayer; and one of the poppyheads has four faces.
One of the windows is filled with fragments of old glass, some of it showing the two Acts of Mercy, Hunger and Thirst. For Hunger a nobleman in red with a blue cap is offering a loaf to a cripple with a crutch, and a lady is holding a basket with a fowl in it, an angel standing by. For Thirst a nobleman in a purple cloak and blue robe is handing a cup to a poor man which a lady fills from a flagon, an angel standing by blessing the gift. Other fragments in this window show St Catherine persecuted by a tyrant on horseback, then chained to the city gate to be slain by a soldier with a sword. Here also is St Cecilia about to suffer martyrdom, and there are other fragments with St Margaret thrusting a cross into the dragon’s mouth, St Juliana scourging the devil, and a bishop blessing a child in its mother’s arms. We noticed also in this window the picture of a frog.
These are the riches of Combs, but it has also a 14th century font, a Jacobean pulpit, a canopied piscina and sedilia to match, the old roodloft stairs, a roof with its cornice decorated with angels, and paintings on its medieval screens, one forming arches through which we walk, the other with its massive base richly painted.
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