About the church

St Mary's Church is thought to have been built by the first Norman Lord of the Manor of Farleigh in the 1080s to serve the needs of his own household. The manor house, now Farleigh Court, is close by. The church is small, seating about sixty people, and consists of the original plain Norman chancel and nave, topped with a shingled bell-turret. The "new" part of the church is the extension to the chancel, which was added in the mid-1200s- a simple, square piscina in the south wall shows where the original altar stood. A half-timbered porch was added to the West end in the 1700s and a vestry to the south in Victorian times.

Interesting features of the church includes a memorial brass to a London merchant, John Brock or Brook, and his wife and five children, dating to 1495. On the opposite side of the chancel is a memorial to Rev Dr Samuel Bernard, "a faithful pastor, a man stained by no covenant" who was deprived of his livings during the rule of Parliament in the 17th Century, possibly because he refused to abandon the Prayer Book services as a new law required. The stone also records that his widow, Elizabeth, survived him for forty-eight years, dying in 1705 at the age of 96.

The church is set in a beautifully kept graveyard (now closed for burials) and is Grade 1 listed.