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United Kingdom
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Warwickshire
Stratford-On-Avon
Preston On Stour

St. Mary the Virgin Church, Preston-on-Stour

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St. Mary the Virgin Church, Preston-on-Stour

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    April 15, 2022

    The church of ST. MARY THE VIRGIN, anciently of St. Peter the apostle, comprises chancel, nave, and tower. The church is of ashlar, except for the south wall of the nave; that wall is medieval in origin, containing masonry of several different builds, but there are no identifiable medieval features in it. Below one of the windows are signs of a former south doorway. There was also a north doorway with a porch, demolished in 1757. The tower was built in the late 15th century; it has a high plinth and three stages above, separated by moulded string-courses. The belfry stage is lit by pairs of cinquefoil pointed lights in two-centred heads; the roof has battlements and angle pinnacles; and the buttresses, straight on the east, diagonal on the west, rise to the level of the belfry floor. In 1753 James West began the rebuilding of the church. The work was done by Edward Woodward of Chipping Campden, and the result is 'remarkable as one of the earliest churches of the Gothic revival.' The chancel was rebuilt in 1753–4. It was given a roof of three small gabled bays, tiled and surrounded by a parapet broken on each side by a pinnacle. The segmental vaulted ceiling is plastered and divided into ribbed and painted panels, and has an enriched frieze and cornice. The east window, in the style of the early 14th century, and the north and south windows, in the style of the 15th, have on the inside enriched plaster architraves. The chancel is hardly narrower than the nave, and the chancel arch is almost the full width of the chancel. The interior of the chancel was said, in 1868, to indicate 'the careful munificence of a wealthy resident family at an earlier period than the ecclesiastical movement'. In 1756 the main doorway into the church was made through the west face of the tower, with a window like the side windows of the chancel above it. In 1757 the north wall of the nave was rebuilt, with two windows similar to the east window of the chancel. The late 15th-century roof of panelled timber with carved bosses was restored; it is covered with lead and surrounded by a parapet. Two windows were inserted in the south wall, to match those in the north. A gallery was built at the west end of the nave in front of the tower arch; on its front was placed the royal arms, carved and painted, of the period 1603–88. The chancel was restored in 1904,  when a small north door was added below the window.

    In the windows of the chancel and tower is a quantity of painted glass acquired by James West. The pieces in the east window, and some removed thence to the tower window in 1904, came from the Netherlands and Germany, and some of them are dated 1605 and 1632. The remaining glass in the tower window, mostly heraldic, is English, of the 16th century and later. The glass depicting heads, in the north and south windows of the chancel, allegedly taken from Evesham Abbey, is probably 17th-century and perhaps also from the Netherlands. The small cup-shaped font was made in the 18th century. The organ was given in 1895 by James Roberts West. In the chancel are two groups of mural monuments in marble to members of the West family, including one by Peter Mathias Vangelder (1800) and one by Richard Westmacott the younger (1838); also mural monuments to members of the Mariett family, and one with figures, brought apparently from St. Mary's chapel, Islington, to Sir Nicholas Kempe (d. 1624). There were three bells c. 1700; two by Henry Bagley, 1635, survive, and the third is by Abraham Rudhall, 1713. The plate includes a chalice with base and stem of c. 1500 and a remade bowl and paten-cover given by Sarah, wife of James West, 1747; also an Elizabethan chalice and paten-cover. The registers begin in 1540 and are virtually complete.

    The churchyard was enlarged in 1885 and 1926. In the early 18th century each landowner was responsible for a specified section of the fence round it. The fence was later replaced by a wall, and there are two pairs of large 18th-century stone gateposts with wrought iron gates. One pair opens on an avenue of ancient yews.

    There is said to have been a medieval chapel at Alscot, on the site of which Alscot Park was built. No documentary evidence of this has been found; the possibility that the moulded stones found at Alscot were brought from elsewhere is the stronger because of James West's antiquarian interests.

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      Elevation 60 m

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      Location: Preston On Stour, Stratford-On-Avon, Warwickshire, West Midlands Region, England, United Kingdom

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