St Mary the Virgin, Stevington
St Mary the Virgin, Stevington
St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I parish church on Church Road, Stevington, Bedfordshire, in the Diocese of St Albans: an Anglo-Saxon tower with a fourteenth- and fifteenth-century church beside an ancient holy well.
- Location
- Stevington, Bedfordshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Bedfordshire
- City / town
- Stevington
- Address
- Church Road, Stevington, Bedfordshire, MK43 7QB
- Postcode
- MK43 7QB
- Built
- Saxon west tower; C14 nave, aisles and chancel chapels; C15 clerestory and tower top; restored 1871
- Architect
- Henry Clutton (restoration 1871)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- St Albans
- Parish
- Stevington
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Anglo-Saxon tower with Decorated nave and Perpendicular clerestory
- Grid reference
- SP 990 536
- Opening hours
- Open daily 10am to 5pm summer; 10am to 4pm winter. Should the church be closed, a number is available to ring on the noticeboard in the porch
- Access
- Accessible toilets in church. Level access to the main areas. Ramp or level access available on request
Overview
Historic England lists a church whose west tower is Saxon below belfry level, with a Perpendicular top. Nave and both aisles are fourteenth-century, the south aisle probably earlier than the north. North and south chancel chapels are also fourteenth-century but now unroofed and ruinous. The fifteenth-century clerestory has a fine nave roof with figures holding shields of the Passion and woolpacks with merchants’ initials. A high Perpendicular screen of one-light divisions now stands under the tower. Front benches have good sixteenth-century poppyheads. A brass to Thomas Salle (d.1422) is 32 inches long. Victorian restoration of 1871 was by Henry Clutton.
Bedford Borough archives note long-and-short quoins to the tower and a high, narrow, rough-hewn Anglo-Saxon arch on the south wall of the tower, with a contemporary splayed window retaining original woodwork. Wikipedia records a first church on the site from about 880 and later work completed about 1480; a rebuilding of 1872 was sponsored by the Duke of Bedford. The church is open daily (10am to 5pm in summer, 10am to 4pm in winter), with accessible toilets and level access.