St Mary's Church, Beverston, Gloucestershire, Church History

Gloucestershire Places of Worship

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Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of John Williams/Alf Beard

St Mary's Church, Beverston

St Mary's Church,
Beverston Village, off A4135,
Beverston, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) a graveyard.
Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded before 1225, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1923 tells us that Beverston is a parish and village 2 miles west from Tetbury station on the branch of the Great Western railway from Kemble junction, and 5½ south-west from Nailsworth station on a branch of the Midland railway.
It describes the church of St Mary as a small building of stone in the Saxon, Norman and later styles, consisting of chancel and nave, north transept of Berkeley chapel, south porch and a western tower containing 2 bells. On the tower is a bas-reliefe of Our Lord holding a banner.
The British Listed Building website has more to say about the figure, explaining that the tower as built in 2 stages, with 2-light belfry louvres on the top stage of each face, and a pointed arch doorway with hoodmould on the south side with "pre-Conquest sculpture of figure of Christ above", and suggests there may have been an earlier Saxon place of worship.
It describes the Norman doorway in our photograph as "with hoodmould carved with inverted crockets and jamb shafts with crocket capitals". "Crockets", according to Pevsner, are "decorative features placed on the sloping sides of spires, pinnacles, gables, etc. ... carved in various leaf shapes and placed at regular intervals".
The beautiful Rood Screen was erected in memory of George and Charlotte Maria Savile in 1907 by their only child Beatrice Lowsley-Williams.
The registers of baptisms and burials date from 1565, and of marriages from 1563. The living in 1923 was a rectory in the gift of the Crown, and had been held since 1922 by the Rev. George William Dominey. There were (in 1923) 140 sittings. There is no comparable figure for 1851 as a return to the Religious Census of 1851 for Beverston doesn't appear to have been made.
Nearby is Beverston Castle, which was built as a fortified manor house by Maurice de Gaunt about 1225. The church was extended around the same time, and again in 1361 by Thomas Lord Berkeley, who also extended the castle, adding an embattled tower, with a chapel on its first floor. At the time of publication of Kelly in 1923, it was said to be in ruins and covered with ivy, though "some massive Norman piers and groining remain in perfect condition, as well as portions of the external walls... In 1873 the base of a circular tower of solid rubble masonry, 24 feet in diameter was discovered in the rectory garden close by".

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference ST8616694010. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

St Mary's Church, Beverston shown on a Google Map.
Places of Worship in Beverston shown on a Google Map.
Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Beverston, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

Learn more about Buildings of special or historical interest on the British Listed Building (null) (verified 2018-09-19)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.

Information last updated on 12 Sep 2018 at 08:22.

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Further Information

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This Report was created 23 Dec 2024 - 04:12:29 GMT from information held in the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship Database. This was last updated on 13 Oct 2021 at 14:13.

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