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.
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.
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 contributed by Aidan
McRae Thomson.
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