Splendid mid-C14 chancel; the sedilla is a good specimen of its period. Nave is Early English; tower is EE too (C13) in its lower stages but has been rebuilt in the Perpendicular period. Mainly C14 elsewhere. Norman font, altar rail given in 1732, with finely shaped and twisted balusters. It has a semi-circular projection in the middle. A few C14 benches. Coffin of … Robert Thoroton d.1678 who lived in village. (1) (2)

A nave of four bays, early English, a decorated chancel of great beauty, a square embattled tower … the lower portion being early English, the rest perpendicular. Early English or perhaps Norman font. (3)

The chancel roof was renewed in 1844. The flat, leaded roof of the nave was raised to its original pitch and tiled, the leaded aisle roofs tiled and the south porch roof raised in pitch and tiled in 1882. Font … of about 1130. (4)

The early place-name evidence hints at a church having been present by 1242, and possibly much earlier. The earliest surviving fabric in the church is the lower part of the tower of 13th century date. The nave must have pre-existed the tower but construction of the north and south aisles, and their arcades, in the mid-14th century have removed any above-ground evidence of earlier fabric. From the middle of the 14th until the middle of the 16th century the church belonged to Worksop Priory who built the present chancel and the rebuilt the upper part of the tower. Both aisles were presumably also built when the Priory took over the church. The chancel roof was repaired in 1844, and a major refit of 1882 included work on the nave, aisles, south porch, lecterns, and lamps. (5)

In 2023, two sondages were excavated by hand in the tower and at the west end of the south aisle. Both revealed a construction/levelling layer under the Victorian concrete flooring, which in the tower covered the remains of a possible stone hearth. A stone alignment was exposed but not further investigated along the southern wall of the church, which could possibly relate to an earlier construction phase. A mixed assemblage of finds dating from Medieval to modern was recovered, which included a Nuremburg Rose and Orb Jetton, a potsherd of C13th-15th and fragments of window glass possibly pertaining to the original church. (5)

See L1602 for cross base.

Listed buildings slides, 40 slides (Photograph). SNT2648.

<1> Mee A, 1938, The King's England: Nottinghamshire (Published document). SNT914.

<2> Pevsner N, 1979, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire 2nd ed., p 90 (Monograph). SNT4.

<3> Thoroton Society, 1897, TTS, p 4 (Published document). SNT325.

<4> Thoroton Society, 1970, TTS, p 70 (Published document). SNT383.

<5> E. Vecchi, 2024, St Mary's Church, Car Colston, Nottinghamshire: Scheme of Archaeological Monitoring and Recording (Unpublished document). SNT6070.