TR 0446 0546 WYE HIGH STREET (north side) 8/263 Church of St 27.11.57 Gregory and St Martin GV I Parish church. C13 origin, remodelled C15 for Cardinal Archbishop John Kempe. East end rebuilt 1701-1710. Restored 1873/1878. Flint and rubble with plain tiled roof. Nave with aisles, chancel, south-eastern tower and south porch. Kneelered gabled west end with Perpendicular style west window (1950's), with triple shafted and moulded C13 doorway. Aisles buttressed throughout, with coved corbel table and battlements. The north aisle (carried round to east of nave) in particular with fine series of grotesque heads (some to south). Battlements. Perpendicular fenestration throughout. Two storey porch, the side elevations treated as one with aisles, the south elevation reworked e-C18, with rusticated ashlar quoins and arch, with round eastern angle vice. Large 2 stage south-eastern tower on site of C13 transept with massive triple offset diagonal buttresses, and polygonal north-eastern stair turret, crowned with battlements and pyramidal finials. Keyed round headed brick belfry lights, simple moulded door. Many stones set in tower recording benefactors, 1701-10. Short, low chancel, with shallow apse and battlements. Three round headed windows, and blocked round headed openings visible especially in north elevations, 1873 set in window cills, T.D. 1706 in apse wall. Fine C18 raised and fielded panelled double doors in west and south doorways. Wall plaque sunk into north aisle, to John, Elizabeth and Sarah Hudson, d. 1718-19, with double skull head. Interior: nave of 4 bays, with springing of a fifth to the east. C13 capitals and deeply undercut moulded arches, the piers remodelled with hollow chamfers mid C15. Clerestory with segmentally headed 3 light windows added at same time. Trussed collar beam roof with moulded knee-braced tie beams. Lean-to aisles, the window reveals all segment headed. South aisle with four centred arched doorway to porch upper chamber, and C18 round headed door east to tower. Simple round headed chancel arch. Fittings: the chancel arranged as if a college chapel (and indeed so used from its building by the school/college opposite). Large raised and fielded panelled wainscotting with separately articulated dado panelling, incorporating panelled benches on the north and south sides, with reading desks to the same pattern on the chancel arch jambs. The panelling follows the apse round, and is ramped up to form a round headed central reredos with painted text boards (some oval). Integral altar rail, with turned baluster and square principals. All circa 1706. C19 pulpit and nave benches and wooden lectern (1914-18 war memorial). Octagonal font with roses and shields in quatrefoils, and doubled octagonal base. Monuments: Alice Palmere, brass, 35 inches. A Lady with 2 husbands, C.1440. In the chancel: Agnes and Mary Johnson, d. 1763 and 1767. Simple urn on plaque with obelisk and wreath, and Calamitous inscription: "Their days were imbittered by various evils". Lady Joanna Thornhill, d. 1708. First class wall plaque of white marble, the inscription of roll call of the Royalist and Restoration faithful, surmounted by a group of cherubs in draped surround, with only the top segment of a pediment, arms cartouche over and fruity festoons mounted separately to the wall, the whole supported on barley-sugar twist columns, with bracketed apron and pulls, that to right weeping into his cloak. Barley sugar columns are also used on the porch to the old Wye College, used in part for Lady Joanna Thornhill's school foundation. Simple aedicule plaque to Mrs Elizabeth Sawbridge, d. 1862, with obelisk and urn and wreathed portrait in profile. Eight Sawbridge hatchments in the nave and aisles. A small stone plaque over the west door records the (early C18) contribution to the Church of Thomas Gillman, bricklayer of Wye. The mid C15 in the church corresponds with Archbishop Kempe's contemporary work in his foundation at Wye College. The Church was originally cruciform, with a 5 bay nave, and chancel at least 60 feet longer than at present, the transepts and east end destroyed by the of the original tower in 1686. (See b.o.e. Kent II, 504-5). Listing NGR: TR0540446906