St Mary the Virgin, Bishops Cannings

St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I parish church at Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire, in the Diocese of Salisbury, a large Early English cruciform church on a former episcopal estate, about three miles north-east of Devizes.

Overview

Historic England lists an Anglican parish church of the early to late thirteenth century, with fourteenth- and fifteenth-century work, restored in 1862–63 and 1883. The fabric is ashlar limestone, with lead roofs to nave and aisles, stone tiles to transepts, chancel and south porch, and slate to the south chapel. The cruciform plan comprises a short nave with aisles and south porch, transepts with an east lady chapel to the south transept, a two-storey vestry (partly of flint) on the north of the chancel, and a central tower with spire. Nave and aisles have three-light Perpendicular windows, but the west end has triple lancets. A crenellated parapet with pinnacles conceals the steeper pitch of the former thirteenth-century nave roof.

The south porch is a fifteenth-century encasement of a late-thirteenth-century porch, with ballflower on tendrils. Transepts have gabled buttresses, a corbel table and lancets. The chancel, about 1250, has offsetting buttresses; the tower has nook shafts, lancets with pierced stone screens, and a stair turret with conical capping. The interior nave arcade is of four bays with pointed arches on round columns with trumpet-scalloped capitals. Unplastered walls above show the positions of four earlier clerestory windows each side. Pevsner noted the church’s uncommon size and nobility. Eight bells are still rung. The Cannings and Redhorn Team now serves the parish, which includes Coate, Bourton, Horton and Little Horton.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1193298
• Cannings and Redhorn Team