MINSTER CHURCH STREET TR 3064-3164 (South Side) 5/17 Church of St. Mary 11-10-63 GV I Parish church. Tower and nave C11 and C12, chancel and transepts C13. Refenestration in partC15. Restored 1863 by Ewan Christian. Flint, rubble, some re-used Roman brick and Caen stone dressings. Plain tiled roofs. Chancel with C19 vestry, transepts, nave and aisles, western tower. Three stage tower with offset pilaster buttresses, string courses, battlements and shingled spire. Square south-eastern stair turret, truncated and capped with spirelet. C19 Romanesque style west doorway. Round headed tower and belfry lights. Aisles with 3 offset buttresses, plinth, string course and battlements. Renewed C15 and C19 Perpendicular style tracery. Moulded hoods to south and north doors. Chancel and transepts all of one design and build, with offset clasping buttresses, moulded string course (raised around transepts), and lancet windows, a group of 3 in chancel east wall, with round headed gable light over. Flying buttresses to chancel and single storey vestry (to south of chancel) added by Ewan Christian 1860's. Exterior walls with several monumental plaques, most late C18,attached. (1 on south side, 4 on south transept, 3 to north transept, and on tower). Interior: tower with Romanesque window reveals on ground floor. Tower arch semi-circular on large half-round responds with scalloped capitals, that to south with double thickness masonry. Also double thickness with blocked Norman windows are the westermost bays of the nave arcades-signs of late C12 rebuilding of the original church. Arcades of 5 bays. Three easternmost of south arcade c1190 with round piers, abaci, scalloped capitals with zig-zag and billet moulding to arches. Two eastern bays and north arcade C 1180. Round capitals and bases to south, square abaci and waterholding bases with spurs to north and some crocketting and dogtooth. Nave roof of 6 crown posts, with round-headed lights to tower and 2 in nave east gable.Crossing arches to nave and aisles, all of same pattern, with double chamfered arch on round attached columns with moulded capitals. Transepts, crossing and chancel all of 1 build. Two bay transepts, with roll moulded stringcourse, attached shafts based on stringcourse supporting vault, added in 1863though on original springing. Original vaulting in crossing, springing from below arch capitals,quadripartite rib-vaults without ridge rib. Chancel arch chamfered with hollow chamfered surround and attached and keeled columns and mouldings. Four bay chancel, each bay narrower to east, with string course and attached wallshafts, the abaci extended to form a continuous frieze with circles and quatrefoil and trefoil enrichment. Quadripartite rib vault springs from those attached shafts, with keeled ribs. Triple lancet east window with deeply moulded and beaded surrounds and paired attached shafts. Fittings: chamfered arched aumbry with linenfold pattern door in north chancel wall. Choir stalls, dateable 1401-19 (the name of John Curteys, rector at those dates appears on one stall). Carved misericords and arm rests, 2 rows of 4 to the south, 10 to the north. Font and cover: C15, octagonal on moulded base. Cover, restored, with open work panels, pinnacled,displaying shields, with scrolled iron pulley bracket, one chain attached to the cover by a gadrooned globe finial. Glass: East window by Willement, 1861, good quality work. Monuments: C13 tomb chest in north transept with trelobed arcading and incised cross, set in wall recess with roll and beaded hood mould. Thomas Paramour d.1621. Hanging wall monument in north aisle of alabaster with black marble plaque and figures. Thomas and his wife Mary kneeling opposite each other with arcaded background. Frieze cornice and pediment on Corinthian columns on strapwork brackets. The Mother Church of Thanet and an Anglo-Saxon Minster Church. (See B.O.E. Kent II, 1983, 393-5). Listing NGR: TR3109164255