Patrick Comerford
I was in Saint Mary’s Church on Church Green Road, Bletchley, earlier this week for a meeting earlier this week, and I arrived a little early so I could take photographs and learn a little about this interesting church which is full of character and history.
Saint Mary’s was the local church and a focal point for many of the people who worked at Bletchley Park breaking the secret German codes during World War II, and they would have found solace and spiritual support at Saint Mary’s Church.
Bletchley is now one of the suburban or satellite towns of Milton Keynes, but the original 12th century chapel of ‘Bicchelai’ stood on high ground where Saint Mary’s Church stands today.
Saint Mary’s Church is listed Grade I because of its 12th century origins, the 12th century door or chancel arch, its rebuilding from the late 13th to the 15th century, the mediaeval roofs, the 15th century tomb of Richard Grey, Lord Grey de Wilton, and other interesting monuments.
The plan or outline includes a chancel with a north chapel, a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch and a west tower. Outside, Saint Mary’s is embattled throughout and is largely Perpendicular in appearance, with some Decorated windows and doorways. The chancel has a fine Decorated-style east window, entirely renewed in the 19th century, and two 19th Perpendicular style windows in the south wall and a 19th century doorway.
From the late 12th century, early priests in Bletchley were provided by the Benedictine monks at the Priory in Newton Longville. Later rectors were nominated by the de Grey, Wilton and Willis families, who have memorials in the church.
The church dates from Norman times and is built of limestone rubble with lead roofs. It is largely Perpendicular in appearance, with some Decorated windows and doorways. But the only surviving part of the Norman chapel is the arch of the south doorway, moved to its present position and reset ca 1300-1330.
This curious south door is the earliest part of the church. The inner part has continuous mouldings and is probably late 13th century. The outer orders have rich Romanesque mouldings including a beakhead, and may be a former chancel arch or doorway reset and remodelled in the late 13th century. A porch was built to protect the archway in 1330, although rebuilding and restoration over the years have left little of the original porch.
The church was rebuilt in stages from the late 13th to the 15th century. The original chancel was replaced by the current building by 1290. The floor plan was almost in its final form by 1330, although there were further additions in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The north chapel east window is early 14th century with renewed, Decorated tracery, and there are traces of another 14th century window in the north wall, but otherwise the chapel and north aisle windows are late 15th century. The north aisle has a late 14th century north door. The 15th century nave clerestory has four windows on each side, each with three lights.
The east window in the south aisle dates from ca 1330 and has good Decorated tracery. The south aisle west window is 15th century, and there are two late Perpendicular style windows in the south wall.
Inside, the church has a very complete mediaeval fabric dating from the late 13th to 15th century, and has good mediaeval roofs.
The late 13th century chancel arch has the inner order on moulded capitals, and a contemporary south arcade has four bays, with chamfered arches and moulded capitals and bases. The blocked late 13th century clerestory has foiled circle openings above the arcade. A former rood loft door survives on the south side.
The two-bay chancel north arcade has ballflower decoration on the central capital. The arcade does not extend the full length of the chancel, and a small 14th century door at the east end of the arcade into the chapel indicates that both arches of the arcade were intended, as now, to be blocked by tombs. A blocked, trefoil-headed squint is beside the door. The 14th century arch between the chapel and the north aisle has recut head corbels.
The 14th century north arcade of four bays increases in length towards the west. The east respond has a 14th century head corbel and the west respond capital, may have been reset and has stylised flowers. The third pier has a 15th century capital.
The final change to the shape of the building came in 1410 with the erection of the three-stage west tower (20 metres, 64 ft). The tower has a north-west diagonal buttress, a south-west stair turret rising above the parapet and a large Perpendicular west window. The tower arch has polygonal responds, and there is a 15th century clerestory. There is a small, probably 19th century timber gallery with a glazed, traceried screen below in the tower arch.
The piscina and sedilia in the chancel date from the late 13th or early 14th century, with four arches carried on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases. There is a trefoil-headed, 14th century piscina in the north chapel.
Much of the 14th century work, and probably also the 15th century work, is associated with the Grey family, who held the manor of Over, West or Old Bletchley from the early 13th until the mid-17th century. The north chapel was intended as a chantry chapel and family mausoleum, although only the tomb of Richard Grey (1393-1442), 6th Lord Grey de Wilton, survives in the north chancel.
Grey accompanied Henry V to France at the time of the Battle of Agincourt. His grandmother, Lady Petronilla Butler, Baroness Talbot, was a daughter of James Butler, 1st Earl of Ormond. His monument is an armoured alabaster effigy on a chest panelled with quatrefoils. A 17th century helm hangs above.
Browne Willis (1682-1760), the early antiquary, owned the Bletchley estate from 1699 to 1760, and was responsible for refurbishing the church in 1704-1707. He had the church ‘repaired and beautified’, and the chancel was provided with a new ceiling and painted with the twelve Apostles ‘in the Verrio manner’, indicating an exuberance of clouds, draperies and rich decoration after the manner of Antonio Verrio (1639-1707).
A table tomb in the chancel is to his wife Katherine, who died in 1724. Unfortunately, both her tomb and Lord Grey’s tomb are partially hidden by an inserted floor in the sanctuary in the 1980s and by the screens for the service area.
Above these two monuments, on the north wall of the chancel, is an early, rare example of the coat-of-arms of Queen Anne which does not include the arms of Scotland, which were only added to hers in 1707.
A former rector, Thomas Sparke, who died in 1616, is remembered in a small, unusual brass by Richard Haydocke showing a bust on a tomb chest surrounded by allegorical and other figures, texts and arabesque ornament, set within an alabaster strapwork frame.
Sparke was the Rector of Bletchley in 1603 when he was summoned to the Hampton Court Conference, involved in revising the Book of Common Prayer and the publication of the Authorised Version (King James Version) of the Bible.
A small, fragmentary, late 16th century monument with coloured alabaster effigies of a man and eight children is said to have been brought by Browne Willis from Deptford church.
The plain font with a circular bowl may date from the 17th century. The octagonal cover is early 17th century and has a spire with arabesques.
The church also has a rare pre-Civil War poor box dating from 1637.
The reredos in the chancel was designed by Sir John Ninian Comper (1864-1960) in the 1950s. The oak panelling on either side of the reredos is a war memorial dating from World War I.
The 19th and early 20th century stained-glass windows include two pairs of windows by Comper in the south porch.
The five-light East Window (1868) above the reredos was designed by Henry George Alexander Holiday (1839-1927) for James Powell and Sons and depicts the Annunciation (two lights), the Good Shepherd (centre), and the Nativity (two lights). Holiday had succeeded Edward Burne-Jones as the chief designer for Powell in 1863, and established his own workshop in 1890.
The three-light window at the east end of the south aisle shows three Resurrection scenes: the Marys at the tomb, ‘Noli me Tangere’, and Mary Magdalene talking to the Disciples.
The three-light window at the west end of the south aisle (1903) shows the Nativity with the Shepherds and the Kings. It is by Joseph Bell & Son of Bristol. The firm was established by Joseph Bell (1810-1895), and was continued by his son (Frederick Henry Bell 1847-1899) and grandson (Frederick George Bell 1878-1967) until 1923.
The three-light window towards the east end of the north aisle, ‘Mors Janua Vitae’ (‘Death the Gateway to Life’), is a Selby-Lowndes family war memorial window that shows Christ the King in the centre holding a crown, with two angels and a soldier to the left and two angels with an orb and sceptre to the right.
There are two pairs of small, trefoil-shaped windows by Sir John Ninian Comper (1864-1960) in the south porch: the pair on the east side show angels holding a scroll, ‘In Memory of Catherine Rogers’; the pair on the west side (1959) show two angels ringing two church bells.
Browne Willis’s chancel paintings were removed during the restoration in 1868, when the chancel south door was also altered, and the church was refurnished. The architect, William White (1825-1900), was a leading architect of the Victorian Gothic Revival.
The church was restored by William White in 1838.
The church was refurnished in the late 20th century with furnishings and chairs for seating. The pews, choir stalls and pulpit were removed in the 1980s, and the current stone floor was installed. The White period furnishings were removed and a two-storey service and meeting room area was installed in the north chapel. At the same time, both the chancel arcade and the arch to the aisle were blocked by timber and glazed screens for the service area.
The de Grey family continues to be remembered in the area in the name of the Lord Grey School, a three-minute walk from the church.
The ministry team at Saint Mary’s Church includes: the Revd David McDougall, Vicar; the Revd Rachel Ciampoli, Curate, and the Revd Simon Faulks, Assistant Minister. In addition, the Revd Peter Landry is at Whaddon Way Church, Bletchley, and the Revd Ben Thorpe is the Vicar of Saint Joseph’s Church, Newton Leys.
The weekly services include a one-hour service every Sunday at 10 am, and a Wednesday Communion at 10 am.
