Listed Building: PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY (1121550)

STROOD VICARAGE ROAD TQ 76 NW 2/286 Parish Church of St Mary 16.5.91 II* Parish Church. 1868-9 by Arthur Blomfield. Built and endowed by Mary, widow of John Griffith, Dean of Rochester. Snecked rubble ragstone; Kent tile roof. Yellow brick interior, with red brick dressings. Nave (with W narthex and gallery), N and S aisles, S porch S transept, chancel with N aisle. W front: an original well detailed design. Shallow gabled porch with limestone coping, vesica (containing small figure of Christ in Majesty) to gable wall, 2-centre arched portal with detached shafts. Buttresses to either side, that to the right (s) serving also as a stair turret. Tripartite W window arrangement (2 light window flanked by lancets); projecting statue niche above; complicated buttressing marks the transition between the W wall and polygonal apex belcote, with spirelet. The rest of the exterior is more straightforward: 5-bay nave and 3-bay chancel with clerestory (2-light clerestory windows under hood moulds), paired lancets to aisles. 3 stepped lancets to E end. Interior: nave piers of quatrefoil section with fine stiff-leaf capitals, arches under continuous hood moulds with foliated corbels; poly- chromatic brick work to spandrels and clerestory walls; roof, boarded and canted with paired principals. Elaborate W end arrangement: the 3 W windows deeply recessed under 3 stepped super-ordinate arches the shafts enclosing a gallery (over the narthex) which is pierced by 2:3:2 arches with marble shafts. 2 lancets flank central doorway below legend recording endowment of the church by Mary Griffith, 1869. Chancel, raised by 3 steps, moulded arch of 3 orders on tall shafts and foliated corbels. Side elevations treated differently: to the N, 2-bay arcade of richly moulded arches on paired shaft with foliated capitals; to the S, ie towards the organ chamber, a tall moulded super-ordinate arch with 2 subordinate arches and large cusped roundel. Chancel walls decorated in herringbone brick and mastic. (Stepped E lancets contain Expressionist glass by William G Blyth). Reredos: tripartite arrangement, the centre with Supper at Emmaus (by T Bromfield), of excellent quality,with side panels of mosaics by Salviati. Tiled floors. Full fittings include sanctuary rails, open-fronted stalls, open benches to nave; stone front and openwork wooden pulpit. Overall an outstanding church described by Newman (Buildings of England, 1980 edition, p 551) as 'thoroughly convincing ... tautly designed and with an excellent use of materials', and one of Blomfield's best works. Listing NGR: TQ7387669490