AN EARLY BRASS which hide the church, parsonage and school. Large trees grow in all parts of the forlorn churchyard, and the church when opened has a musty, charnel-house smell, but one soon forgets that in amazement at the fine and spacious fourteenth century nave and clerestory, its grand tower and its large and lofty fifteenth century Perpendicular chancel and aisles. The wide ten-foot passage up the nave between the old poppy-*head seats fitly corresponds to the large open space round the font, which rises from an octagonal stone platform as big as that of a market cross. There is a quantity of old woodwork besides the seats. A good rood-screen—though like all the others, minus its coved top and rood-loft—shows traces yet of its ancient colouring; birds and beasts of various kinds are carved both as crockets above and also in relief on the panels below, and two good chantry screens fill the eastern ends of the aisles. A very fine Jacobean pulpit and tester was put up by Dr. Worship, the vicar from 1599 to 1625, in memory of his wife Agnes, whom he describes in a brass on her tomb, dated 1615, as "a woman matchless both for wisdom and godlyness." The two greatest treasures in brass are the extremely fine eagle lectern, its base supported by three small lions, which was found in the moat of the old Hall, the seat of the Browne family, flung there probably for safety and then forgotten; and a notable half-effigy, head and arms only, of a knight in banded mail, with a tunic over the hauberk, and hands joined in prayer. The legend round him is in Norman French, but his name is lost; the date is said to be 1300, so that this is, next to that at Buslingthorpe, the earliest brass in the county.
The Browne family are perpetuated in the chancel, where on the north wall are two similar monuments of kneeling figures facing each other, both erected about 1630. The first is to Valentine Browne, a man with a very aquiline nose, and his wife Elizabeth (Monson), with effigies in relief of their fifteen children. He is described as "Treasurer and Vittleter of Barwick, and Dyed Treasurer of Ireland." Barwick is "The March town of Berwick-on-Tweed." The tomb was erected c. 1600 by his second son John who lived at Croft, and whose effigy is on the other tomb along with his wife Cicely (Kirkman), of whom we are told "she lived with him but 20 weeks and dye without issue ætatis 21 Ano Domini
