Church of St Mary the Virgin, Aldermaston

The Church of St Mary the Virgin stands in the Berkshire village of Aldermaston. Built in the mid-12th century, it mixes Norman and Jacobean styles and has grown through later centuries. The nave still shows its 12th-century core, while the Forster Chapel and chancel were added in the 13th century. A 14th-century steeple rises above the building, and a 17th-century vestry completes the plan. Charles Keyser paid for a major restoration in 1896 under Edward Doran Webb, uncovering a medieval drainage system that became a piscina. The church keeps unusual features such as a heptagonal Jacobean pulpit and tempera wall paintings revealed during repairs. Its eight bells range from a 1681 Henry Knight bell to a 1895 Warner treble, and the ringers have rung over two hundred peals since 1900. The organ, built in 1880 by Martin & Coate, has nine stops and four couplers, with a 1938 tremulant added later. Notable burials include Maria Hale, buried beside a yew tree after local tales called her a witch. Visitors enter a space shaped by centuries of change. The nave’s plaster-lined walls now carry tempera art, and the Forster Chapel holds an alabaster monument to Sir George Forster and his wife. Two roundels in the north window show the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin, the oldest glass in Berkshire. The south chancel houses the 1880 organ, its spotted-metal pipes and concave-parallel pedalboard on view. Outside, the churchyard contains the graves of Maria Hale and Charles Keyser beneath yew and elm trees.