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Churches of the British Isles

Gallery: Churches of Warwickshire

by Peter Kessler, 18 April 2010

South Warwickshire Part 44: Churches of Kineton & Butlers Marston

St Peter & St Paul

St Peter & St Paul, Butlers Marston, is at the southern end of the lane which leads off Bridge Road. The church consists of a chancel with a south vestry and organ chamber, nave, south aisle with a small south porch, and a tower at the western end. There was a priest, implying a church (probably of wood), at Marston in 1086. The nave of the replacement Norman stone church was built in the twelfth century, or perhaps even earlier, almost certainly with a chancel.

St Peter & St Paul

The church was given by Ralph le Boteler to the Abbey of Alcester when he founded that house in 1140. Probably the earliest addition was a narrow south aisle built in the mid-to-late twelfth century, although only the three bay arcade now survives. The chancel seems to have been rebuilt or enlarged in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, perhaps both, but there is very little evidence left in the architectural details. The aisle was widened in the fourteenth century.

St Peter & St Paul

The tower was added in the fifteenth century, while the nave has a seventeenth century roof, the others being modern. The chancel's side walls were refaced externally, if not mostly rebuilt, in the eighteenth century. The various repairs culminated in a restoration in 1872 which was drastic, perhaps of necessity because of earlier alterations; it included the entire rebuilding of the north wall of the nave, the renewal of the chancel arch and other parts, and new roofs.

All photos on this page kindly contributed by Aidan McRae Thomson.

 

 

     
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