Parish Church Of St Mary And St Giles

The Parish Church of St Mary and St Giles at Stony Stratford

The tower dates from the late 15th century. The rest of the church was entirely rebuilt in 1776 by Francis Hiorne of Warwick. It was restored in 1876–8 by E Swinfen Harris, who installed new tracery in the windows and added north and south galleries. North vestries were added in 1891, also by Harris. The chancel was rebuilt on an entirely different plan by C G Hare in 1928. Following a fire in 1964, the church was restored in the late 1960s to designs by H A Rolls and Peter Foster. Plans to rebuild and extend the vestry and church hall in 2009/10 were drawn up by Julian Limentani of Marshall Sisson architects.

The church is built of squared stone with tile and slate roofs. Its plan comprises a chancel, a hall church nave with north and south aisles, a north vestry complex, and a west tower.

The four-stage west tower has clasping buttresses and an embattled parapet. A late 15th-century west door and a 19th-century west window are present, with two-light tracery windows with transoms in the bell stage. The nave windows feature unusual 19th-century plate tracery: three lancets under three foiled circles at the top, a blind area in the middle, and three short trefoiled lights at the bottom. The sills are said to have been raised in the 19th century. The nave has a hipped roof to the east. The 1928 chancel is gabled in early Italian Gothic style, with a three-light plate tracery east window flanked by gabled pilaster buttresses and pairs of trefoiled lights in the north and south walls.

The interior is light and spacious, in a late 18th-century Gothick style. Very tall, thin north and south nave arcades with clustered shafts are made of cast iron clad in wood, with high plain square bases rising above the former pews. A quadripartite rib vault forms the ceiling, with the ribs of each bay descending to the piers where they continue as shafts. The aisle window sills are very low, forming seats, with continuous moulding in the rear arches. A plain chancel arch at the east end of each aisle is flanked by tall recesses. The chancel has a barrel-vaulted ceiling with inter-penetrations above the north and south windows. The east window is framed within a full-height rear arch with a four-centred head. North, south, and west galleries are carried on shafts copying those in the arcades; the north and south galleries are 19th-century, the west gallery 20th-century. A late 15th-century tower arch of two moulded orders with shafted responds is largely hidden behind the west gallery.

The church was reordered in 1968 following the fire. A semi-circular platform at the east end of the nave holds an altar with rails designed to match the arcades. A fibreglass crucifix by Anthony Weller dates from 1968. The seating comprises modern chairs. A good 19th-century font in Perpendicular style is present. In the nave stands a polygonal pulpit with Arts-and-Crafts Gothic blind tracery bearing an inscription recording its gift as a memorial for the First World War. Probably from the same set, now in the south aisle, is a fine lectern with a delicate buttressed stem and openwork tracery ends; one kneeling bench with vine scrolls; a credence table with openwork front; and a carved timber altar frontal with floral designs. Above the south aisle altar is a reredos of the Crucifixion by Ninian Comper. These fixtures are probably from around 1928.

The small trefoiled lower lights in the nave windows contain very fine glass of 1889–97 by N H J Westlake. The west window is by Kempe, dated 1903. Figures of saints in the upper lights of the nave windows came from the former apse and date from the mid-19th century.

A lychgate of 1928 stands at the High Street entrance.

The church, formerly known as St Giles, was one of two churches in Stony Stratford by the late Middle Ages, the other being the now ruined St Mary's. A church with several priests is recorded in Stony Stratford in the early 13th century, though it is unclear which church this refers to. The earliest surviving fabric at St Giles is the 15th-century tower. By the 1530s, St Giles had a Lady Chapel and a vestry. St Giles was a chapel of Calverton, whilst St Mary's was a chapel of Wolverton. Both became independent parishes in the mid-17th century, but were united in 1742 after St Mary's burnt down. St Giles proved too small for the population, and except for the tower, was rebuilt in 1776 in a Gothick style by Francis Hiorne of Warwick (1744–1789), a notable Georgian church architect especially known for his elegant early Gothic revival style, seen to best effect at Tetbury in Gloucestershire. His elegant polygonal chancel, which had very tall pointed windows with fanciful pinnacled ogee tracery, was unfortunately demolished and rebuilt in 1928 to allow the High Street to be widened. His nave windows had previously been altered by E Swinfen Harris, a local architect, to accommodate the insertion of galleries. The interior was damaged by fire in 1964 and was restored and reordered, reopening in 1968.