North Stoke : St Mary The Virgin

The church was built in the 1230s and is almost entirely medieval, and still has C14 wall paintings, ancient oak pews and a brick floor. The Ridgeway path runs through the church yard, to either side crossing the River Thames and climbing the Chilterns.

About this church

The church belonged to the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. There was an earlier church on the site, the chancel of which was rebuilt in the C13 and the nave and tower in the early C14.

The tower was subsequently repaired after collapsing in the C18 and the upper stages were patched in brick.

The lancets in the side walls have jamb shafts of Purbeck marble with stiff leaf capitals; the chancel arch has similar details. The East window is Victorian.

Early C14 nave with two-light windows of uniform design and a north door with its original ornamental ironwork. The timber porch is C15.

A C13 tub font with Jacobean cover and nearby the remains of a Norman collar piscina. Polygonal Jacobean pulpit.

Over the chancel arch, fragments of wall painting of the Last Judgment, on the side walls narrative scenes, including the lives of St. Catherine and St. Stephen on the north and Passion scenes on the south. Above the north doorway the legend of the Living and Dead Kings. All mid-C14.

A brass to Roger Parkerc.1360.

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