Description

SP51SE
2/27
18/07/63

BECKLEY AND STOWOOD
CHURCH STREET
(West side)
Beckley
Church of the Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary
(Formerly listed as Church of The Assumption of St. Mary the Virgin)

GV
I

Church. C14 and C15, restored 1845. Limestone rubble with ashlar dressings;
plain-tile and sheet-metal roofs. Aisled nave, chancel, central tower and south
porch. The C14 chancel has 2-light side windows and a 3-light east window, all
with Reticulated tracery, and a priest's doorway to south with its medieval
door; the steep-pitched roof has a gable parapet. The parapetted south aisle has
similar Decorated windows, to west and west of the porch, but to east and east
of the porch has C15 windows with 3 lights under 4-centred arches. The C15/early
C16 porch has a wide 4-centre arched outer doorway, with ancient double-leaf
doors, beneath a small cusped niche; the parapet string has corner heads and a
gargoyle. The 4-centre arched C15 south doorway has a richly-moulded rectangular
surround with label and has quatrefoils and mouchettes in the spandrels. The
door is C13 and has elaborate hinges, The C15 north aisle has 2-light windows
with Perpendicular tracery, to north and east, and a blocked north doorway. The
nave has square-headed C15 clerestorey windows and a west doorway similar to
that on the south, but retains a late C13 west window of 3 lights with
Intersecting tracery. The crenellated 3-stage central tower, now flanked by the
aisles, shows the roofline of former transepts, and has 2-light arched belfry
openings; at the north-east angle is a 2-stage circular stair turret, with a
short octagonal spirelet, which may be C13 or earlier. Interior: The chancel has
a section of earlier string course on the north wall; its 7-canted medieval roof
has coupled rafters with king posts rising to upper collars, The central tower
has four C14 arches of 2 chamfered orders dying into single-chamfered responds.
The C15 nave has a 2-bay arcade with delicate cruciform piers and a stone missal
desk built into the north-east respond; the contemporary roof has moulded tie
beams, purlins and wallplates and is braced from moulded posts. C13 wall
paintings on the west and south outer wall faces of the tower; C17 paintings on
the tower and the west wall of the nave. C14 and C15 stained-glass panels and
figures in north aisle and in some tracery lights of chancel windows; chancel
north window 1895 by J. Hardman; other C19 glass in chancel, west window of
nave, and east and west windows of south aisle. Fittings include a C12 tub font,
C15 bench pews in and aisles, a C17 pulpit with arched panels and tester, a
medieval chest, and a C17 bier in the porch. Wall monument in chancel to Anne
Croke (died 1609) has a brass engraving and inscription in a Classical stone
frame beneath an achievement; several plain C18 wall tablets in aisles; early
C19 lozenge-shaped floor slabs to members of the Croke family of Studley Priory,
(V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.V; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, pp. 447-8).

Listing NGR: SP5622811273

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17528944

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)