St Mary's Church, Tenby

St Mary’s Church stands in the heart of Tenby, a walled seaside town in Pembrokeshire. Built on a site used since Norman times, most of what remains today dates from the 15th century with earlier parts from the 13th. Gerald of Wales once served here as rector, and the church still keeps features from his era. The tower, added late in the 13th century, once housed a chapel with a stone altar and piscina. Two fonts survive, one medieval and another from the 19th century. The building is famous for its roofs and monuments. The 13th-century chancel has a wagon roof with 75 bosses carved as foliage, grotesques, fishes, a mermaid, a green man and Christ with the four apostles. St Thomas’s Chapel was added in the mid-15th century and St Nicholas’s Chapel around 1485. The spire and font also belong to the 15th century, and the bell bears the inscription ‘Sancta Anna’. Among the memorials are tombs of Thomas and John White, both fifteenth-century mayors of Tenby. Inside, visitors find the tombs of the White brothers and tablets to Robert Recorde, who introduced the equals sign, and James Sleeman, who helped end the Thuggee movement in India. Outside, 20 metres west, lie the remains of a late 15th-century choir school or college, marked by a pointed arched doorway. The churchyard and building together form an outstanding late medieval ensemble.