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St Mary the Virgin 

Church Lane 

Bletchingley 

Surrey 

RH1 4LP 

 

Tel: 01883 743252

South Chapel Holy Spirit Chapel Vestries Pulpit |  Clayton Memorial Cawarden Tomb List of Rectors | 

About our church building

The tower is early Norman (about 1090) and over 5ft thick in parts. At one time there was a spire but in 1606 this was destroyed by lightning which 'did in very short tine cause the spire to burn ... and melt to infinite fragments a goodly ring of bells.'
Fortunately, the bells were restored and over the centuries the numbers increased to their present ring of 10, the last two being installed in 1991.

The porch and the great oak door date from 1460. Over the porch is a room where our Elizabethan ancestors stored their 'harness' against the Spanish in 1588.
The figure of Our Lady and the Holy Child outside are modern, as is the figure by the Rood stair.

The chancel arch dates from the Perpendicular alterations made in about 1460 by the Duke of Buckingham and his chaplain, Hugh Hexstall, who became Rector in 1451. They altered the whole alignment of the church to fit the new south arcading of that date.

The reredos above the High Altar is by Street (1870) and is notable for the figure of Samuel Wilberforce as Bishop of Winchester (Bletchingley was at one time in the diocese of Winchester) among the apostles ans saints.

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  Reredos