Church of St Mary the Virgin, Reculver

Built in the Gothic Revival style, the Church of St Mary the Virgin is faced on the exterior with knapped flint, and has limestone dressings, for example forming the apertures for its lancet windows and at its corners. There is a diagonal buttress at each corner, and another buttress supports the centre of the west wall to the height of the roof line. At the top of the west wall is a masonry bellcote containing a single bell: this is a replacement for a bell made in 1635 by Joseph Hatch for the old church at Reculver and re-used in the present structure until 1970, when it was stolen.^[23] The roof is continuous for the full length of the chancel and nave, with a single ridge, and is covered in red clay tiles. These are continued to form a cat-slide roof covering a small, northward extension from the chancel that houses an organ.^[12]

The church is entered at the western end of the south wall through a porch containing a 13th-century doorway also from the old church at Reculver, comprising a "many-moulded arch and keeled nook-shafts with simple foliage capitals."^[20] Further stone fragments from the old church are incorporated into the interior, for example in the walls where the nave and chancel meet, and some 17th-century memorials are laid in the floor.^{[12][Fn 3]} The font, located on the north side of the west end of the nave, also pre-dates the present structure, and probably originated in the medieval All Saints' Church, Shuart, on the Isle of Thanet: All Saints' has been only a matter of historical record since at least 1630.^[12][25] The font was "rescued from a state of neglect, and ... presented to the [new] church by John Rammell, ... of Shuart, St Nicholas[-at-Wade]."^[19] It is octagonal, in the Perpendicular style of the 14th to 15th centuries, lined with lead and supported by a modern plinth.^[12][19]

The interior walls of the church are rendered with plaster and painted white, except where stonework such as the window apertures is left bare. The structures of the chancel and nave are distinguished only by width – the chancel being slightly narrower than the nave – and differing treatment of the roof space. While the ceiling in the nave is formed by the shape of the roof, there the latter is supported by exposed tie beams and crown posts. In the chancel, the ceiling is a barrel vault formed by seven longitudinal wooden panels painted blue, which are trimmed with strips of timber painted white and forming squares.^[12] An extension comprising a vestry of similar external appearance to the rest of the church, apart from a flat roof and rectangular windows, was added to the southern side of the chancel in 1963.^[26][12]

The church's Communion vessels include a silver cup, paten and flagon dated 1684, made by "T.C." and inscribed as being "[t]he gift of John Hills of Reculver, Churchwarden, 1685."^{[23][20][Fn 4]} Stained glass in the windows is all modern, none having survived from the old church at Reculver.^{[27][Fn 5]} An organ, built in 1955 by F. H. Browne & Sons of Ash, near Canterbury, and in a case designed by Caroe & Partners, is installed in the north wall of the chancel, where it further occupies a small extension built for the purpose.^[26] Adjacent to the organ are a pulpit and, on both sides of the chancel, choir stalls. Seating for the congregation is provided by pews along both sides of the nave: when new, the church's capacity was given as 150.^{[19][Fn 6]} The church is surrounded by a graveyard, at the northern edge of which a war memorial stands facing into the adjacent Reculver Lane. Set up in 1919, it records the names of 27 parishioners who died fighting in the First World War and the Second World War.^[28][29]

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Reculver, remains in use as an Anglican church within the diocese of Canterbury, the archdeaconry of Canterbury and the deanery of Reculver. Its benefice is united with those of St Bartholomew, Herne Bay, and Holy Cross, Hoath.^[30] Until 1960, the pastoral care of Hoath had depended on the parish of Reculver since the Middle Ages.^[31][32][33]

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