Church of St Mary the Virgin is a Grade II* listed building in the Buckinghamshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 13 July 1966. A Medieval Church.

Church of St Mary the Virgin

WRENN ID
frozen-courtyard-pigeon
Grade
II*
Local Planning Authority
Buckinghamshire
Constituency
Buckingham and Bletchley MP: Callum Anderson (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
13 July 1966
Type
Church
Period
Medieval
Address
Church of St Mary the Virgin, Church Lane, Padbury
OS grid reference
SP 721 309
Coordinates
51.9721, -0.95122
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a parish church that dates back to the 13th century, featuring a nave, chancel, and west tower. The aisles were added in the 14th century, with alterations made in the 16th century and the tower being rebuilt in the 17th century. The church underwent significant restoration in 1830 and 1882, with a late 19th-century south porch and an early 20th-century vestry added to the north side of the tower. The structure is built of coursed rubble stone, with a flat lead roof over the nave and aisles, and a tiled roof over the chancel.

The west tower has three stages, a plinth, a parapet, pointed openings for the bell chamber, and a tall arched west door with a modern round-headed window above. The nave features a rendered clerestory with three round cusped 14th-century windows on the north side and four three-light Perpendicular windows on the south side, along with a blind circular window above the porch. The south aisle has paired lancets on the west wall and Perpendicular windows on the south and east walls. The restored 14th-century south door has a continuous moulded arch and jambs, along with an earlier label decorated with nailhead ornament and carved head stops. The north aisle contains Decorated windows, while the chancel has small low lancets on the west and two-light windows on the east, with the north window featuring Y tracery and the south window being Decorated. The east window is a three-light window with reticulated tracery.

Inside, the tower has a triple chamfered arch supported by carved head corbels. The nave consists of four bays with a double chamfered arcade on octagonal piers that have moulded caps, and end arches resting on corbels, some of which feature carved heads. The early 13th-century chancel arch has been rebuilt and is supported by piers with wide segmental pilasters. The roofs retain some original timbers and have been restored in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The chancel includes a small aumbry and a cusped ogee piscina in the south wall. The south aisle features two trefoiled piscinas, one adorned with dogtooth ornament. There are 14th-century figurative wall paintings in the spandrels of the south arcade and on the north aisle wall. The altar table is dated 1634, with other fittings from the late 19th century and early 20th-century stained glass. The chancel also contains 18th-century wall tablets.

Local climate

Church of St Mary the Virgin sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 730 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 79% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 78% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 60% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

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