St Edward's Church, Stow-on-the-Wold

St Edward's Church stands on Church Street on the west side of the Market Square in Stow-on-the-Wold, its fifteenth-century tower a landmark for miles across the wold. Its north door, under a seventeenth-century porch, is framed by two old yews, and after the battle of Stow in 1646 more than 1,600 royalist prisoners were held inside. It is listed Grade I.

History

The town was once called Edwardstow, after its church, and a priest is recorded here by 1086; the Victoria County History thinks the saint most likely Edward the Martyr, though it cannot be sure. Nothing in the building is older than the twelfth century: the west wall of the nave and a reset capital in the south arcade.

The medieval church

By the end of the thirteenth century the church had its cross shape. The south arcade is early thirteenth century, the north aisle and arcade about 1300, and the north doorway, with its moulded arch of six orders, late thirteenth. In the fourteenth century the chancel was rebuilt and the great west window of the nave put in. The fifteenth century added the four-stage tower, with panelled battlements, gargoyles and crocketed pinnacles, the clerestory and a remodelled north transept. In the mid fifteenth century Robert Chester founded the guild or chantry of the Holy Trinity, which William Chester refounded in 1476.

The battle of Stow

Early in 1646 Sir William Brereton's parliamentary army caught Lord Astley's royalist force near Stow, in what is counted the last battle of the first Civil War. More than 1,600 prisoners were taken and shut in the church. A floor slab in the chancel remembers Francis Keyt, killed in the fight; the county history notes that 1645, often given, is the wrong year. By 1657 the church was so ruinous that it was unfit for use.

Restorations

Bishop Robert Frampton encouraged repairs in the 1680s, the church was repewed bit by bit in the early eighteenth century, and a west gallery went up in 1825. After a restoration in 1847 and a new nave roof in 1859, J L Pearson restored the church thoroughly in 1873, removed the gallery and built the south porch.

What to see

Start outside, at the north door.

• The north doorway: late thirteenth century, six orders of mouldings, under a shallow seventeenth-century porch, with a yew growing either side. A local story links it to the doors of Moria in Tolkien; no evidence for the link has been found, so enjoy it as a legend
• The tower from the Market Square, and the clock facing the square, successor to one of the early sixteenth century

Inside:

• The unusually wide, round chancel arch, springing from the walls without columns, with a fifteenth-century sanctus bellcote above it outside
• In the chancel, a fourteenth-century piscina and part of a sedilia, still showing traces of colour, and the slab to Francis Keyt
• Monuments to John Chamberlayne, who died in 1668, and his family
• The large Crucifixion in the south aisle, attributed to the Flemish painter Gaspar de Crayer, given in 1838 by Joseph Chamberlayne Chamberlayne
• The late sixteenth-century goblet-shaped font
• The fourteenth-century west window, with flowing tracery under an ogee arch

Visiting

St Edward's is open every day, 9am to 5pm in summer and 9am to dusk in winter, and closes for weddings and funerals, so groups should check first. It is free to enter, but the church asks for a donation of £4 a person. There is water on the picnic tables for visitors, a prayer tree and a colouring table for children. For step-free access, A Church Near You says to use the churchyard entrance nearest to Huffkins on Church Street. The Sunday service is at 10.30am. Come early in the day to have the north door to yourself.

Getting there

The church is on Church Street (GL54 1BE), just off the Market Square. There is no parking at the church: use the Maugersbury Road car park (GL54 1HH, charged) a few minutes' walk away. Pulhams bus 801 stops in Stow about hourly every day, with a shorter day on Sundays, between Moreton-in-Marsh station, Bourton-on-the-Water and Cheltenham.

On foot, the Stow-on-the-Wold and Maugersbury walk finishes past the church on Church Street, and the Stow and Lower Swell walk passes about 100m away.

Nearby

A few steps away in the Square is the medieval market cross. For tea, the Old Bakery Tearoom is off Digbeth Street, and the Porch House, the Old Stocks Inn and the Kings Arms are inns in the middle of the town. A mile west, Lower Swell has the Norman church of St Mary, a war memorial thought to be to a Lutyens design and the Pineapple Spa. East of Stow, St Nicholas at Lower Oddington has a huge medieval Doom. Our story on the wool churches of the Cotswolds includes St Edward's.