St Medardus and St Gildardus Church, Little Bytham

St Medardus and St Gildardus Church stands in the small Lincolnshire village of Little Bytham. It is a Grade I listed building dedicated to two 6th-century French saints whose names appear together nowhere else in Britain. The churchyard holds an annual fête on or near 8 June, the feast day of St Medard. The dedication is unique in the United Kingdom. St Medard is still widely honoured in France, where at least twenty-five towns bear his name. The earliest parts of the church are Anglo-Saxon ‘long-and-short’ stone quoins at the nave corners. Norman features include an ornately carved Priest’s Door with a finely worked tympanum that once held a relic. Nikolaus Pevsner described the door as uncommonly ornate. The tower arch and north door belong to the late 12th century. Empty circular niches and roundels with birds, possibly eagles, recall legends of St Medard. The south aisle, tower and spire date from the 13th century, with tracery in the east window suggesting work around 1300. A Green Man capital from the same period survives built into an internal wall. The chancel arch and a double piscina also belong to the late 13th century. The stone pulpit base carries the inscription Orate et parate, dated 1590. A single war grave in the churchyard marks a Royal Engineers soldier of the First World War.