Farcet

A sign on the noticeboard and in the porch announces that St Mary "will be opening from 12 noon until 6pm on Sundays from April to October and on Saturdays 10am until 4pm July and August should the church be closed at any other time please call...." so at least they're making an effort. Sadly no reply when I called since I found it locked but the thought was there.

I thought this was a lovely exterior and setting.

ST MARY. The W tower is Late Norman and E.E. Clasping buttresses. The lower windows are still round-headed lancets, but the bell-openings have two pointed openings under a round arch. Corbel-frieze, small recessed lead spire. The low arch towards the nave, however, is already pointed. The pointed arch was usually adopted structurally before it became accepted decoratively. The s arcade S has octagonal piers looking fully E.E. but round, if double-chamfered, arches. The chancel arch has one chamfer and one hollow chamfer. All this is C13 and not late, and so is the one-bay S chapel. The N aisle and clerestory date from 1852. The nave roof no doubt also does, but used in it are some C15 heads and angels. - SEDILE. C13 stone throne, partly original. At the top of the arm a flower in a roundel. - PULPIT. An Early Renaissance piece still with linenfold but also with arabesques including mermaid-like creatures. The remaining fragment of the back panel carries the date 1612, but that cannot apply to the parts described. - BOX PEWS in the N aisle. - STAINED GLASS. The N aisle E window by Kempe & Tower, c.1920. - PLATE. Parcel-gilt Paten with the monogram of Christ, c.1500; Cup and Cover Paten of 1692-3.

FARCET. Here, in this village on the River Nene, ploughmen turn up Roman coins and pottery. There were probably ruins of Roman houses when the Normans built the sturdy tower of the church, now capped with a little lead spire and a weathercock. The chancel and one of the aisles is a little younger, and the porch is 14th century. A fragment of a cross near the old yews has been here about 500 years. The church has 16th century benches with carved ends and Elizabethan panelling, and there is part of a priest’s stone seat thought to have been made about the time of Magna Carta. The pulpit, made in Shakespeare’s day, has figures rather like mermaids. There are two old chests in the vestry, and in the nave roof are men’s and women’s faces which have been looking down for 500 years; with them are angels, three 15th century and three by craftsmen of our own day.

Flickr.