The Church of Ampney St Mary is a Grade 1 listed building, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and noted for its interesting architectural and historical features, especially wall paintings. It is a place of worship within the benefice served by the South Cotswold Team Ministry. The other parishes are Ampney Crucis, Ampney St Peter, Poulton, Down Ampney and Driffield with Harnhill.
Information on the benefice churches can be found here.
The Church is on the A417, the road from Cirencester to Fairford, opposite Riding Lane, the road that separates the east end of Ampney Crucis from St Mary, around one to two miles from the centre of the village of Ampney St Mary. Before the Black Death (1346-1353), the village was situated to the south of the Church but resettled to safer ground away from the Ampney Brook which may have been contaminated by the plague. For more information on this see here: Button
The Abbey in Cirencester was given land around Ampney St Mary Church, for the benefit of Canons of the Abbey who lived at Canons Court, now known as Can Court. Ampney St Mary along with its mother church in Cirencester was part of the Archdiaconate of Gloucester while Ampney St Peter was ruled directly from the Worcester diocese (there was no Diocese of Gloucester until after the Reformation).
On approaching the Church, over the north door (now blocked) is a tympanum with a Norman carving of the Lion of Righteousness, representing Good, treading on two serpents, or one two-headed serpent, representing Evil. A griffin looks on.
There are fragments of Roman hypocaust brick in the wall of the Church, but the first building was thought to have been built in the time of the Saxons, early in the 11th century, although it had been altered and added to following the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Of the Norman Church, the font, a window in the south wall and an old north doorway are all that remain. The nave was built in about 1120 and the chancel was added later, in the 13th century. At that point, the nave would have been been altered to accommodate the addition of the chancel and the south porch. The Norman chancel shows the usual signs of 13th century extension, the windows being of a lancet type, with a triplet beneath a single containing arch at the east end.
In the south, there is a small priest’s doorway, the lintel of which is worked with designs of scroll work or foliage, part of a Saxon sepulchral stone.
There is a 14th century bellcote over the east gable, with bell by Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester, inscribed Peace and Good Neighbourhood, 1747.
The window in the south wall to the west of the entrance is carved from a single piece of stone and would have come from an earlier Saxon church and used when the nave was built.
On the inside of the Church door (now blocked) on the north wall is a hexafoil (witches marking) sometimes known as a daisy wheel, carved or inscribed, to protect inhabitants and visitors from witches and evil spirits. The six-lobed geometric flower patterns can be deciphered on close inspection.
The Church is noted for its wall paintings (faded and hard to decipher) dating from four separate periods between the 13th and 16th centuries. Of particular interest are the 14th century scheme of paintings which include a depiction of The Warning to Sabbath Breakers or Christ of the Trades, showing that labour on a Sunday is wounding to Christ; the wounds are visible and the implements of manual labour which inflicted them, including a mallet, a wheel, a knife, a pair of pincers, a comb, a dish, an axe, clustered around the head of Christ. In this wall painting a wheelwright is shown truing a spoke held to his eye.
In 1873, the chancel roof was retiled, its external wall was repointed with cement and a blue-bricked drainage trench was dug around the walls. At this time, the gates to the churchyard and the porch were probably erected and the corona lucis hung in the church.
We do not know how much use the Church received after the Reformation but in 1877 the parish was united with Ampney St Peter, and the Ampney St Mary Church fell into decay. In 1879, the Ivy Church, so called because of the ivy that covered much of the wall, was closed, although the first known reference to the St Mary’s Church as ‘The Ivy Church’ was in 1762, so even at that time ivy must have been thought of as a traditional feature of the building. A new separate aisle was added to the Ampney St Peter Church to cater for the Ampney St Mary congregation. Ampney St Mary Churchyard continued to be used for burials.
Following a period of disuse, the nave of the Ivy Church was in urgent need of re-roofing and ivy was growing into the church through holes in the roof and walls. It was extensively restored in 1912: retiling and reridging the nave, repointing the outside walls with traditional lime mortar, moving and renovating the font and providing it with an oak lid. A new slow burning stove (now removed) was installed between the font and the north doorway. A parishioner, a Miss Minna Croome of Iveson Place in Ampney St Peter gave £400 for the restoration of the Church immediately before her death in 1913. The finishing touch to the restorations was the installation of the Eden window in the east wall in 1914, in her memory.
Water drainage of the Church continued to be inadequate and in the late 1960s Mr Fred Stevens of Ampney Crucis had to dig extra drains to the south west of the Church. Concerns about the need for improved drainage continue today, in 2020.
The Church is rarely used for services during the winter, while in the summer it is used for monthly Evensong with a congregation of around 20 people, and for the occasional baptism, wedding or funeral. Heating is provided by convection heaters during services when the weather is cold. Variations in temperature caused by regular heating or by a large congregation on a wet or damp day can create moisture, which would have a deleterious effect on the wall paintings. Lighting is by candlelight.
The Ledgerstone Survey aims to record all the ledgerstones of England and Wales. Ledgerstones are the flat stones that are placed over a grave inside a church, usually incised with the names and dates of the deceased. Information showing recorded ledgerstones in Ampney St Mary Church can be found here.
More photos of the Church, can be found here Button
Information on the Church has been taken from various sources, as follows:
Research carried out by Michael Champion, a resident of Ampney St Mary who died in 1994, and whose grave is in the Churchyard. The first five following references form part of Michael Champion’s research:
- An article in the Cirencester Bingham Library collection ‘The History of the Parish of Ampney St Peter with Ampney St Mary’ by Florence A G Davidson:
- An article in Ancient Cotswold Churches by Ulric Daubeny, 1921, in the Bingham Library, Cirencester:
- An article in Cotswold Churches, 1976, by David Verey, also in the Bingham Library:
- The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire by Sir Robert Atkyns 1712:
- An extract from Historical, Monumental and Genealogical Collections relative to the County of Gloucester, printed from the original papers of the late Ralph Bigland, Garter Principal King of Arms, 1791.
Information has also been obtained from Analytical Survey and Proposals for the Conservation of Wall Paintings 1998 and 2019, Tobit Curteis Associates, and from Michael Eliot, Churchwarden.
Ampney St Mary Village Website 