Causeway

An evaluation excavation in 2005^[4] confirmed the presence of a causeway next to the top (east–west) section of Church Hill, comprising several phases of stone surfacing approximately 2.6m wide, built on to a 4m wide bank of redeposited natural clay. Although limited dating evidence was recovered, the causeway appears to have been in use by the 17th century, and may well be medieval in origin. The causeway seems likely to have been used until the construction of a dry-stone wall along its centre line in the 19th or 20th century. A possible early road surface extending beneath the modern lane was also identified and, although poorly dated, its construction and use appear to have been broadly contemporary with the causeway.

Interior

The earliest feature of the church is the circular Norman font, the lower part of which is formed like a scallop-capital with fish-scale ornamentation above.

The north aisle, which has three Georgian box pews, is a 14th-century copy of Norman work. The arches of the nave rest on the round columns which have sculptured capitals, all of them different. Here is a fine array of thirty or forty figures and faces below the roof and on the arches. Most are human, with a few grotesques. Some of them are corbels holding up the roof. The bench table (stone bench) on the inside of the north wall is of particular interest and probably dates from the 13th century.

Most of the ancient glass was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell's men in the Fanatique Tymes, as John Aubrey put it, but some fragmentary pieces remain in the north aisle windows, mainly heraldic forms. They show Royal Arms, Scrope, Badlesmere, Dunstanville and Paulet among others. The families represented were all at one time or another associated with the manor of Castle Combe, though the Paulet arms occur all over South and West England.

The 14th-century aisle terminated in line with the chancel arch. When the aisle was lengthened, the original three-light east window with reticulated tracery was reconstructed in the present 15th century east wall, and the square-headed three-light windows inserted in the north wall, and two in the south wall of the nave. Arthur Mee's description of the church in 1939^[6] describes the nave as 'filled with box pews', but these have been reconstructed at some unknown date into pews of a normal height.

The Royal Arms over the chancel arch, which by law after the Restoration had to be displayed, is interesting as it is in the form used by the Georges until 1801. These were the last of the Royal Arms to display the Arms of France in the second quarter.

The pulpit is of stone, with 15th-century stone carving. The stone steps up to it are 600 years old. The altar is crowned with a late 19th-century reredos, which is a Doulton terracotta panel of the Last Supper by George Tinworth. The altar rails are 17th-century with vertically symmetrical balusters. There is a heraldic wall monument beside the altar with marks of lightning on it, to Samuel Arnold, a 19th-century rector for 40 years. Some restoration work was carried out in 1900 and again in the 1970s when a fire destroyed much of the work just finished. Repairs were again completed a year later.

In 2009, the pews and pew platform were removed in the west end of the church, and a new stone floor laid over the earth floor underneath. This revealed that one of the beams supporting the pew platform was very old, hand carved and part painted – possibly part of the rood screen that many churches had before the Protestant Reformation.

The church possesses several pieces of silver, including a flagon, chalice, paten and paten cover, most of which date from the 17th and 18th century. Memorials include a brass commemorating the eight men of the parish who died while serving in the First World War.^[7]

Bells

The tower holds six bells which were restored and rehung by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough on a new steel frame in 1982 below the old wooden frame, displacing the old ringing chamber, thus the bells are now rung from the base of the tower. The tenor bell is c.1410, from the Worcester foundry; two others are 17th-century.^[8]

The tenor bell has an unusual border. Ornamental borders of foliage or arabesques between the words or on other parts of the bell are hardly ever found on mediaeval bells. The only other instances in an English church are believed to be on the tenor at Hereford Cathedral (about 1450), and a bell at Bintry, Norfolk (about 1530).^[9]

In the churchyard

There are 24 listed monuments in the churchyard, all chest tombs with a Grade II listing. Also here is the war grave of Private Edwin Kent, who lived at The Gib while employed by a Burton coal merchant until he enlisted in the 2nd Wiltshire in January 2015. He died in October of that year, aged 32, after being wounded during an advance in Flanders, and was given a military funeral.^[10]

In the churchyard are also the graves of Captain John Russell Compton Domvile (1856–1893) and Eva Kathleen Domvile (1868–1897), children of Reverend Charles Compton Domvile (1816–1898) who was Rector of St Mary's. This branch of the Domvile family^[11] is descended from Charles Pocklington Esquire MP who succeeded his Uncle Sir Compton, and took the name and arms of Domville.