Radcliffe on Trent
St Mary

Stonework

The stonework of the rebuilt chancel is recorded in the Nottingham Journal of 18 June 1858. Externally the ‘walling stone is from Bulwell, left rough upon the face like rock-work, and the effect has been vastly improved by the insertion of bluestone bands running round the building and over the arches of all the openings’. The quinquennial report of 1955 noted that recent repairs at the east end revealed that the fabric ‘has no properly constructed foundation’.

The report of 1955 records the walling of the nave as formed of ‘square tooled faced ashlar’, and suggests that stone from the old church could have been used, redressed with horizontal bands of sandstone. All piers, arches, responds, string courses, window sills and arches and clerestory windows are formed in dressed Weldon or Ancaster stone. (Re-building records indicate that Goddard and Paget recommended Ancaster stone, but Corsham stone was used for at least some of the work.) The construction of the north and south aisles, and the baptistry (now known as the tower room) forming the base of the tower, is similar to the nave.