Guide to St Mary's Church

This chapel is the crowning glory of the Church, a masterpiece of English Gothic architecture, carried out in miniature, for its three bays measure less than 40 feet in length.

The ingenuity of the architect is displayed at the entrance to the chapel, where the awkwardness of the junction of the arch with the transverse arcade of the chancel is overcome by the insertion of a beautiful little niche, which holds the modern replacement for the original figure of St Michael shown here.

The crossing of the ribs of the vaulting from the South side, which spring from one base in nine different directions, is a very early example of this device afterwards common in flamboyant architecture in France. On the North side, the ribs of the vaulting rise from bases near the floor, without capitals to the pillars, to the central rib of the vaulting, almost in the manner of fan tracery.

The curvilinear tracery of the windows and of the stone screens of the adjoining chantry chapel (now Sacristy or Vicar's Vestry) is most beautifully designed.

There is a touch of humour in the label stops to the ogee arch of the Sacristy - a sheep's head on the left, and a rabbit with pilgrim's staff and scrip on the right. It is widely accepted that this rabbit was the inspiration for the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". The Pilgrim Rabbit has been adopted in recent years as St Mary's Church logo.

In the east window of the Sacristy are the only remaining fragments of ancient coloured class. The central boss of the roof represents a naked soul carried in a sheet by two angels.