St Mary’s has an almost intact early Victorian Gothic interior, as designed by Pugin. There remain a few vestiges of the pre-Victorian church, and there are later additions and modernisations.
Nave
The nave is of 14th century date. The nave roof was restored by Pugin in 1845 and refurbished in 2025 by Ackroyds of Nottingham, under the architect Mark Stewart.
Pulpit
Pulpit: Before the 1840s, the church had a triple-decker pulpit of Jacobean style, with a reading desk, pulpit and clerk’s desk. This was taken out during the Pugin restoration and a medieval-style, stone pulpit was installed.
Rood Screen: An oak rood screen was erected in the late 15th or early 16th century. This probably replaced an earlier one. It was carved with elaborate tracery and Tudor roses, and a small, surviving panel can be seen in the baptistry chapel. It would have had a loft or upper tier with a life-sized Crucifixion scene, and candles or lamps would have burnt in front of it. The loft was removed at the Reformation, but the screen remained in place until the 1840s. It was replaced in 1844-6 by one of oak in an early Victorian Gothic design by Pugin.
Pews: Until the 1840s, there was a variety of pews in the church, some box-style and some benches, facing in different directions. Pugin installed pews throughout the church. A grant was awarded for installing new seating by the Incorporated Church Building Society (ICBS) in 1845, but not paid until 1847, when the work was complete. The new pews increased the seating capacity from 465 to 554, and there was also provision for children on moveable oak benches at the west of the nave. Correspondence from Henry Alford to the ICBS shows that the proposed seating was to be ‘exactly that of the old oak free seats, no poppy heads – flat ends with linen patterns carved in the end. Very plain but substantial and handsome.’ The nave and south aisle pew seating remains intact.
Funeral Bier: Designed by Pugin and made by Hardman, of oak. This is placed next to the railings of the baptistry chapel.
Aisles
Remains of medieval roof bosses
The aisles are of 14th and 15th century date, along with the clerestories above them. They were substantially rebuilt, along with all the window tracery, by Pugin in 1844-6.
As with the nave, the interior roofs were originally of oak with elaborate foliate bosses. Examples of these can be seen in the baptistry chapel.
There is an application for a faculty to place an oak chest in the church, dated 8th June 1931. It is believed this refers to the current large chest in the north aisle.
Image gallery: interior features of St Mary's church (click to enlarge).
Baptistry Chapel and Font
Caption
A baptistry chapel was created by Pugin at the west end of the south aisle. It is partitioned off by a low timber screen.
The medieval font disappeared at some point during the two hundred years after the Reformation. Nichols in his 1790s History of Leicestershire, mentions that the church had a ‘new’ font with a cover over it. Pugin designed another font, based on medieval designs, which replaced the existing font. The font of 1844-46 is octagonal, on a stepped base, and decorated with the emblems of the four Gospel writers. As for the old font, a newspaper article of 1880 stated that it had been removed to the garden of The Hermitage (now Wymeswold House) in Wymeswold, but its subsequent fate is unknown.
Chancel
Chancel and high altar
High altar: The high altar is in its traditional position, against the east wall of the chancel. In the later Middle Ages, there would have been a stone altar slab, and there seems to have been a gilded and painted alabaster reredos (decorative screen) behind it. An ornate sedilia (stone seat) was located on the south wall. These were removed at the Reformation, along with a wooden table used for Communion services, which no longer survives. From the Reformation to the 1840s, painted panels of the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments) and Creed were hung on the east wall. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the chancel was used as a school and meeting place.
The high altar was returned to the east wall during Pugin’s restoration of 1844-6. A new mural version of the Decalogue was placed behind it and a Gothic sedilia placed in the south wall.
During the restoration of the church in the 1950s, a new altar table and riddel posts were given in memory of William Frederick Charles of Wymeswold, by his daughter Dorothy. Lighter oak furnishings currently in the chancel and a dark oak priest’s chair were transferred from the old Mission Hall in Burton on the Wolds, when it was closed in the early 1980s.
Choir: In the chancel, Pugin placed choir stalls with ‘poppy head’ seats and desks. It was noted by Trappes Lomax in his biography of Pugin that it was ‘The first of the old parish churches to be restored upon Catholic lines with return stalls and rood screen.’
Floor: Encaustic tiles made by Herbert Minton of Stoke-on-Trent.
Organ and choir stalls
Organ: The organ was built by the Leicester firm of Stephen Taylor in 1912. One of the organ’s pipes has ‘Wymeswold Great, September 1912’ written in ink above the pipe's mouth. This organ replaced an instrument of 1840 which was originally installed in the west gallery of the church. In 1847, it was repaired and placed in a new organ chamber in the chancel. It was believed to be one of the first such organ chamber added to a church. The current organ is a two manual instrument, with pedalboard and has sixteen speaking stops, six on the Great, seven on the Swell, and three on the Pedal.
