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The large splendid tower has been described as one of the finest Parish Church towers outside Somerset. It is built in four stages,richly decorated with bands of quatrefoils. The niches on the west face contained modern stone figures representing Moses and Aaron, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Peter, and the archangels Michael and Gabriel. The parish magazine of 1901 records that the Rector’s wife paid for the replacements by breeding and selling black fantail pigeons.
The ‘crown’, i.e. parapet and pinnacles above the fourth stage, is considered by experts to date from about 1500. The will of one Thomas Gryndall, dated 1474, bequeaths money towards the building of the tower, which was probably completed except for the ‘crown’ in about 1480.
The prominence and size of the tower made it a significant landmark. In 1585, as the country prepared to resist the threatened invasion from Spain, the Lord Lieutenant, Sir Christopher Hatton of Kirby Hall, gave order for Beacons to be made in places accustomed and that Tychemershe beacon be sett upon Tychemershe church steeple.
On the south wall of the tower is a painted sundial, dated 1798, and below it a disused clock face made in 1745. There are three scratch dials on the south side of the Church - on the porch, and on two of the buttresses.
The Churchyard, which contains many charming examples of local stonemasons’ work of the C18th and C19th, is remarkable and perhaps unique in being bounded almost entirely by a ha-ha.
Tower showing the six stone niche carvings
Carving of St Peter from 1901
Carving of the Blessed Virgin Mary from 1901
Tower base and ha-ha