Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Bibury

A parish church of great historical significance, with its origins in the mid-to-late 11th century, substantially enlarged in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, and further altered in the 14th and 15th centuries. The building underwent major restoration by Gilbert Scott in 1863 and later restoration by Waller and Son in the late 19th century.

The church is constructed of random and coursed rubble limestone with a stone slate roof. It comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, a north-west tower, and a chancel.

The south doorway is Romanesque with a single roll-moulded order and a hoodmould terminating in stiff-leaf stops. The south porch is transitional in character, featuring a pointed archway with dogtooth enrichment. The short early 13th-century south aisle has a parapet lean-to roof with small lancet windows; a large 15th-century Perpendicular-traceried window was inserted to the right of the porch.

The south nave wall demonstrates the progressive enlargement of the structure. The section immediately left of the aisle dates to the 11th century and retains an original circular clerestory window, with a 13th-century lancet positioned below. The western extension appears to be late 12th-century, featuring pilaster buttresses and moulded mid-height string courses; two lancets are set at high level. The 15th-century clerestory has a crenellated parapet and 2-light windows, three trefoil-headed and one to the west with ogee tracery. Clasping buttresses flank the west end of the nave, which displays a large 5-light Perpendicular-traceried window; a crenellated parapet gable surmounts it with a central lancet recess and flanking recesses. Similar buttresses support the lower stage of the tower, which has a 15th-century belfry with 2-light trefoil-headed openings and a crenellated parapet.

The north aisle is buttressed and contains 14th-century Decorated windows. A 12th-century north doorway has been reset; it features a chevron arch and carved abaci with a plain tympanum into which a trefoil cut-out was later made.

The chancel has various lancet windows, one on the north side with a low sill, formerly shuttered below the glazing. An elaborately carved fragment of a Saxon pilaster survives in the adjacent chancel wall. A fine arcaded triplet of windows on the east wall dates from the 13th-century extension of the chancel. A small rectangular window on the south side illuminates the altar.

The interior is limewashed. The nave arcades are of different dates. The north arcade is transitional and unusual in being interrupted by short lengths of wall; one cylindrical pier has a scalloped capital. The east respond has an elaborately carved capital; other capitals are scalloped or waterleaf types. One arch displays chevrons; three to the east have keeled shafts. Saxon nave pilasters are partially surviving in the north aisle above the arcade. The south arcade, dating to the 13th century, is Early English with three bays.

The roof is a ten-bay Perpendicular tie-beam structure with three tiers of cusped windbracing. Saxon jambs and imposts to the 13th-century chancel arch break through a Saxon string course above. Fragments of what is believed to be a stone rood are visible above the string course. Two blocked windows have Perpendicular cusped heads. The east wall of the chancel contains three aumbries; many other aumbries occur in the side walls.

A 16th-century seat in the chancel is said to have been part of a bedstead. The pulpit in the nave was probably installed by Scott. An early 13th-century transitional font in the south aisle is square with four corner and one central pillar, the outer decorated with rope mouldings. A transitional 2-bay arcade runs around each face of the bowl.

An early-to-mid 18th-century set of ledger slabs in the nave commemorates the Coxwell family of Bibury Court. Two fine marble memorials with obelisk backgrounds on the north chancel wall record Elizabeth Warneford (died 1756) and Anne Estcourt Cresswell (died 1791). A memorial slab in the north aisle bears a Latin inscription to the Reverend Benjamin Wynnington (died 1673).

The principal windows contain fine stained glass: the east window by T. Willement of 1855 and the west window by Wailes, probably of the 1860s. The small window lighting the altar retains some 13th-century glass.

The extensive Saxon remains allow a reasonable reconstruction of the immediately pre-Conquest church. Of particular interest are the transitional features, especially the carved capitals of the north arcade, which form part of a series of alterations undertaken by the monks of Oseney following their appropriation of the church in 1151.