St Guthlac, Passenham
St Guthlac, Passenham
St Guthlac’s is a Grade I church in the hamlet of Passenham, West Northamptonshire, a thirteenth-century nave and west tower with a richly fitted Jacobean chancel rebuilt in 1626 for Sir Robert Banastre.
- Location
- Passenham, Northamptonshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Northamptonshire
- City / town
- Passenham
- Address
- Passenham, Northamptonshire, MK19 6DH
- Postcode
- MK19 6DH
- Built
- Thirteenth century; nave repaired 1621; chancel rebuilt 1626
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Guthlac
- Diocese
- Peterborough
- Parish
- Passenham with Old Stratford with Deanshanger
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Early English nave with Jacobean chancel
- Materials
- Coursed squared limestone with limestone dressings and lead roofs
- Grid reference
- SP 780 394
- Opening hours
- The church can be opened for visitors, please contact us. Otherwise we have a number of Open Days throughout the year, normally at Easter and Harvest as the church is decorated for those festivals.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas
Overview
Historic England records a church of the thirteenth century: the top stage of the tower rebuilt and the nave re-roofed and repaired in 1621 after the collapse of a spire; the chancel rebuilt in 1626; further repairs in 1775; later nineteenth- and twentieth-century restoration. The fabric is coursed squared limestone with limestone dressings and lead roofs. The chancel has a four-light Perpendicular east window and a wagon roof expressed in the rounded lead profile and semi-circular east gable. A tablet over the priest’s door carries Banastre’s arms and the date 1626. The three-bay nave has north lancets and two-light south windows with sexfoiled circles.
Inside, the chancel has a three-bay wagon roof with pendant bosses and stalls dated 1628 with misericords and strapwork; wall-paintings of prophets, evangelists, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, part of the original scheme, were restored in 1962–66. Banastre’s former chancel screen, with Ionic pillars and carved heraldic frieze, now forms the west gallery. His wall monument (d. 1649) is in the church. The parish is Passenham with Old Stratford with Deanshanger, in the Diocese of Peterborough.