Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Fairford

Anglican parish church. The base of the tower dates from the early 15th century, but the remainder of the church was completely rebuilt by John Tame and his son Edmund from around 1480 into the early 16th century. The building was restored in 1852 and 1890. It stands as an intact example of the Perpendicular style.

The exterior is constructed in ashlar on a moulded plinth with an embattled parapet over a string course and crocketed pinnacles between and in the centre of bays. The roofs are not visible, presumably lead. The plan comprises a nave with clerestorey, chancel, central tower, and aisles running almost to the east end on both sides, with a single-storey vestry on the north side at the east end and a large south porch.

The tower rises in two stages above the clerestorey with string courses and corner buttresses. Each buttress carries a large carved figure, rising to twin pinnacles. The tower features a pierced quatrefoil parapet. The belfry stage contains two long trefoil-headed openings, blind at the top with belfry louvres below, and two niches stacked one above the other between them. The lower stage has a clock face to the south and small trefoil-headed windows to each face, with blind quatrefoils above, except on the south side.

The aisles consist of seven bays with four-light windows. Stepped buttresses separate the bays, with carved heads on the string course above each window and on the hoodmould stops. The clerestorey has four three-light windows with continuous dripmould. The south side features a porch in the third bay from the west, with a large pointed archway and square hoodmould with carved spandrels. Over the archway is a niche containing a Virgin and Child. The porch interior has panelled walls, a fan-vaulted ceiling, and an original studded oak door with a postern set into it.

The west end has a very large main window of seven lights with two king mullions and one transom. The lights below the transom have large cusped trefoil heads, while those above feature cusped ogees. Below this is a four-centred archway with a square hoodmould, quatrefoils and mouchettes in the spandrels, and jamb colonettes. The flanking five-light aisle windows also have transoms with cusped arches below. The five-light east window follows a similar style.

Interior

The interior contains a four-bay nave arcade with sixteen shafts to the piers. The moulded ridge beam and principals are supported on stone angel corbels. An octagonal font is present. Some early masonry survives in the tower, with remains of wall paintings. Contemporary wood screens enclose the choir, with carved choir stalls featuring misericords that were probably brought from elsewhere. The High Altar was designed by Sir Ninian Comper in 1920.

A 12th-century lectern stands in the south aisle chapel. It originally had chains and the Matthews Bible of 1551; the Bible and chains have since been removed for safekeeping.

The stained glass forms an almost unique intact series of windows dating from around 1500, painted largely by Barnard Flower, Henry VII's Master Glass Painter. The programme covers the Old and New Testaments and follows a carefully laid-out scheme.

Three monuments commemorate the Tame family. A chest tomb in Purbeck marble containing John Tame (died 1500) and his two wives stands between the Choir and Lady Chapel under the parclose screen. Edmund Tame (died 1534) is commemorated by one floor brass and one wall brass within the Lady Chapel. A chest tomb to Roger Lygon and his wife Katharine, widow of Sir Edmund Tame II, erected in 1575, also stands in the Lady Chapel.