Architectural Features
extended in the C13 when the N and S aisles and chapels were added and the chancel extended.
The tower may also be C13 in origin.
It was renovated again in the C15, when the aisles and chapels were heightened, tower remodelled, and the chancel arch rebuilt.
The W tower, possibly C13 in origin and originally unbuttressed, was remodelled in the later middle ages, when the buttresses, stair turret, W door and W window were added.
Both the aisles and the chancel chapels were heightened in the C15, and have 3-light Perpendicular windows with pointed heads.
The chancel E window is similar, but there are C13 lancets in the chancel N and S walls.
There are C15 offset buttresses on the N aisle and diagonal buttresses on the chancel.
The C17 NE vestry has a 2-light window in a square frame.
The 3-bay N and S nave arcades are early C13 and have chamfered arches on cylindrical piers with moulded capitals.
A former clerestory of quatrefoil windows is visible above the arcades, but the aisle walls were raised in the C15, so that the clerestory is now internal.
The C15 aisle and chapel windows have dropped sills forming window seats.
The aisle roofs are pitched and have C15 roofs with very short crown posts.
The late medieval nave roof has taller crown posts on moulded beams and wall plates.
The tops of the C12 walls are also visible as an offset all the way around the nave.
The arches from the aisles to the chapels are C15, and have chamfered arches dying into the wall high up.
The 2-bay, C13 chancel chapel arcades are very similar but not identical to the nave arcades, and the remains of nook shafts supporting roll mouldings for the rerearches of former C13 windows are visible on either side of the present E window.
The adjacent C13 lancets have a continuous roll moulding on their reveals.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES In chancel, double piscina with a central shaft, C13, very pink from the fire in 1882.
Chancel reredos of 1877 the Good Shepherd and other scenes carved in Caen stone.
Late C19 polygonal timber pulpit with tracery panelling on a stone stem.
TQ4854 : St Mary, Sundridge: pulpit
Late C19 screens in a perpendicular style between aisles and chapels, that on the S incorporating fragments of the medieval screen.
C17 royal arms of Charles I or Charles II.
Very fine c.1726 brass chandelier, the gift of Revd.
Edward Tenison, Rector 1698-1727.
Several early C19 hatchments.
Stained glass of the late C19 and C20, notably in the S aisle an Annunciation by Kemp of 1899.
Very good monuments, including brasses to Roger Isley, d.
1429, a man in armour.
Brass of a civilian c.
1460, and another of Thomas Isley, d.
1518 and wife with their 10 sons and 3 daughters.
Later monuments include John Hyde, d.
1677 a black and white marble tablet with a segmental pediment on Ionic columns, and John Hyde, d.
Also Elizabeth, Duchess of Argyll and Lady Caroline Conway, busts as Roman matrons, by the latter's daughter, the well known sculptor and protégé of Horace Walpole, Anne Damer, in 1808.
A good churchyard with many interesting monuments, including a chest tomb topped by an urn for Beilby Porteous , successively Bishop of Chester and London and a leading abolitionist.
Very good war memorial with polygonal base topped by a tall cross.
HISTORY Sundridge church was mentioned in Domesday book, when it was held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the double-square plan of the nave suggests that the church was rebuilt (probably replacing an earlier timber church) in the C12.
The reasons for the very substantial C13 rebuilding are unclear, but may be connected with the church's position on the pilgrimage route to Canterbury.
SOURCES Lambeth Palace Library, ICBS 12469 Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald , 530-1 Church guidebook REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The church of St Mary, Sundridge, is designated at Grade I for the following principal reasons: * Outstanding medieval church, retaining much surviving fabric of the C13