St Mary the Virgin, Edith Weston

St Mary’s is a Grade I parish church on Church Lane, Edith Weston, Rutland, in the Diocese of Peterborough and the Rutland Water Benefice. The village takes its name from Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor.

Overview

Historic England records a church of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century work. Fabric is ashlar and coursed rubble with leaded, Collyweston and Welsh slate roofs. The fourteenth-century west tower of three stages has a spire with two tiers of lucarnes. The north arcade is twelfth-century, with moulded round arches, circular piers and waterleaf capitals; the south arcade is thirteenth-century. A Perpendicular clerestory lights the nave. The chancel was rebuilt in 1866 in a French fourteenth-century style, with ribbed vaults, sedilia and blank arcading. CRSBI attributes the 1865 rebuilding of the chancel, aisle walls and south chapel to Slater and Carpenter.

Monuments include a fine memorial to Sir Gilbert Heathcote (d. 1733) by J. M. Rysbrack, moved from Normanton Church when that church was affected by Rutland Water. A tall chamber organ by Samuel Green of London, 1787, has an inlaid mahogany case. Glass includes work by Hugh Arnold (1912) and Paul Woodroffe (1936). A carved and gilded reredos of 1896 is by Sir George Frampton. Edith Weston Priory, a cell of Saint-Georges-de-Boscherville, held the manor from 1114.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1073962
• Rutland Water Benefice
• CRSBI: St Mary, Edith Weston