St Mary, Castle Eaton

St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I parish church on The Street, Castle Eaton, Wiltshire, beside the upper Thames, in the Diocese of Gloucester.

Overview

Historic England records a church that is mostly thirteenth-century, restored in 1861–63 by William Butterfield, principally to the roof. The fabric is rubble with a stone tile roof. The plan comprises a two-stage crenellated west tower, a four-bay nave with a gabled fifteenth-century south porch, a three-bay late thirteenth-century chancel, and an odd corbelled belfry over the crossing with a spire and weathervane. The south door is late Norman, with nook shafts, chevron and a roll label with pellets and dragon-head stops. The north side has a catslide roof and a plain Norman arched north door. The fifteenth-century tower has a high stepped plinth, diagonal buttresses and two-light belfry windows. A projecting gabled vestry to the north-east dates from the 1860s.

Inside, the north arcade has been removed and replaced by timber posts; a wall painting of the Virgin survives on the east chamfered respond. There is a Jacobean pulpit incorporating part of a fifteenth-century screen. The porch holds a large mid-fourteenth-century knight’s effigy slab, probably for a brass. Parish and village accounts note a sanctus bellcote above the chancel containing a medieval bell, a ring of six bells, and a scheduled medieval standing cross in the churchyard.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1023297
• St Mary, Castle Eaton