St Mary

Timber-framed bellcote tile-hung with shingled spirelet.

EXTERIOR: This small church, on the edge of a small hamlet, reuses the medieval masonry of the old church from Ebony the Isle of Oxney, a mile to the south.

The footprint of the nave and chancel preserves the medieval original and forms a single space under a continuous roof.

The windows are all two-light Perpendicular ones apart from the E window which is of three lights: some of the masonry is medieval but much dates from Teulon's time.

The buttresses and N porch which were part of the medieval building were dispensed with at the rebuilding.

Over the W gable is a small tile-hung and louvred bell-turret with a small, shingled pyramid capping.

The pulpit is a timber drum with plain sides and a carved cornice and base on a stone plinth: Newman suggests a C18 date.

The font is very small and has an octagonal bowl with a brattished cornice on an octagonal stem on a raised step of encaustic tiles.

The nave floor is of parquet while the chancel has red and black tiles.

There is a good-quality painted royal arms of 1768 which was the work of J Marten of Tenterden.

HISTORY: The church, which was moved from the Island of Oxney in1858, had itself been erected out of the decayed remains of a substantial medieval church.

This chapel, Newman says, was rebuilt at the cost of John Raynold shortly before 1525 while Kilburne, writing in 1659, said that following a lightning strike `about 100 years since, a little church, was built upon part of the former foundations' (Winnifrith).

Sir John Winnifrith, 'The Medieval Church of St Mary, Ebony, and its Successors', Archaeologia Cantiana, vol 100, 1984, pp.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Mary, Reading Street is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a small medieval church rebuilt in a new location in the mid-C19 and preserving much of its original character and masonry. * It has a simply furnished, rustic interior with a good Georgian pulpit.