St Mary's Priory Church, Deerhurst

St Mary’s Priory Church stands in the quiet Gloucestershire village of Deerhurst, beside the remains of a once-powerful Benedictine monastery. Most of the present building dates from the 8th century, when Mercia ruled this land, making it one of the oldest churches in England. Its tall nave and ruined polygonal apse still show the narrow proportions favoured by Anglo-Saxon masons. A later west porch was raised to a tower, its floors linked by staircases that once gave access to a gallery. The church’s history is written in its walls, from herringbone masonry to the blocked doorway that once opened into the nave. The priory’s fortunes rose and fell with the wars between England and France. After King Edward the Confessor granted it to the Abbey of St Denis, the monks lived here until the 13th century. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, tried to take the priory for himself but failed. During the Hundred Years War the Crown seized its income, and later Henry VI handed it to Eton College. Edward IV gave it to Tewkesbury Abbey, which kept four monks here until the Dissolution in 1540. Inside, the nave’s Early English arcades run the length of the aisles, their moulded arches framing a clerestory of later Gothic windows. The south aisle holds medieval glass showing St Catherine and St Alphege, who entered the monastery as a boy. Above the north aisle, William Wailes’s 1853 window and Clayton and Bell’s 1861 glass catch the light. The tower contains six bells, the oldest cast in 1736, while the first floor may once have held an altar like those in Carolingian westworks. Outside, the ruined chancel and the second Anglo-Saxon chapel, Odda’s Chapel, stand nearby.