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WORTHING

753/24/82 SEA LANE AND ILEX WAY 11-OCT-49 GORING BY SEA (North side) CHURCH OF ST MARY, GORING (Formerly listed as: GORING ROAD GORING BY SEA ST MARY'S CHURCH, GORING) (Formerly listed as: GORING ROAD GORING BY SEA GORING BY SEA CHURCH (ST MARY'S)

II* Church, of Norman origins, largely demolished in 1836 and rebuilt to the designs of Decimus Burton, retaining the piers of the Norman arcade, the lower parts of the chancel arch and, according to the church guide, the N and S walls to window sill level. Gothick style. MATERIALS: The church is rendered and blocked out with slate roofs. PLAN: Nave with W end gallery; chancel with 3-bay aisles, NE vestry; SE doorway and W entrance through the W tower. 1966 vestry block added to N side of the chancel; small 1999 lavatory block added to the N face of the tower.

EXTERIOR: The render gives a smooth exterior. Buttressed chancel and aisles, roofed separately from the nave, with coped parapets. All windows with Decorated style tracery and hoodmoulds with carved label stops: 2- and 3-light to the aisles, the chancel window 5-light. Slender 3-stage W tower with large, gabled, diagonal buttresses rising to belfry stage only, a plain parapet above a corbelled cornice and a tall shingled spire. 2-centred moulded W doorway with detached shafts and carved label stops. The tower has octafoils in roundels and 2-light traceried belfry windows. A sculpted figure of Christ on the S wall is a World War I memorial. Clerestory windows visible only from the interior.

INTERIOR: The interior has plastered walls and 3-bay N & S arcades of round piers on moulded bases. The volute-carved capitals appear to have been re-cut if not wholly of 1838. Simple chamfered arches spring from the piers. Flat plastered ceilings to aisles. Plain chamfered chancel arch: unplastered masonry below the springing of the arch appears to be C12. Flat plastered nave roof in the Gothick tradition, divided into 6 large panels by moulded ribs with shallow Tudor arched braces, pierced trefoils in the spandrels and pretty coloured vine bosses. The chancel roof is similar in character but Tudor arched in profile. The E wall retains its original 1838 Gothick scheme with ogee-headed frames to the Commandments and Creed and blind Gothick arcading below. A deep moulded string on the chancel walls rises over the opposed N and S doorways. On the N side of the chancel there is a chamfered arch into a shallow organ chamber. Deep W end gallery (containing organ pipes) carried on octagonal iron piers with capitals with boxed-in SW staircase. The gallery has a blind arcaded front with a Gothick frame to a clock face in the middle. The porch (bottom stage of tower) has a flat plastered ceiling with a pattern of moulded ribs. Unusual font with a round bowl, the base carved, and deep vertical mouldings to the stem. 1888 polygonal timber pulpit with traceried panels. 1888 nave benches with shaped ends. The nave paving contains many inscribed slabs. Monuments include a late C15 brass, many C18 and early C19 wall monuments. Early C18 monument to Susan Cook with a lively bust; large white marble monument by Chantrey to Isabella Lyon, d.1836. E ends of aisles with stained glass windows by Powell. The chancel arch is covered with a 1954 mural by Hans Feibusch.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: This church is of special interest as a handsome 1838 design by Decimus Burton which retains the Norman piers, although re-tooled, and some walling of the original church. The 1888 reordering of the interior complements the pretty Gothick interior, and it has a number of interesting monuments.

SOURCES: Pevsner, The Buildings of England, Sussex, 1965, p 231 Hore, M., A Short Guide to St Mary's Church, Goring-by-Sea, n.d.