St Lawrence's Church, Broughton

St Lawrence’s Church stands on the edge of Milton Keynes, between the A4146 and the old A5130 roads. Built in the 14th and 15th centuries, it is a simple stone church with a nave, south porch, chancel and west tower. The tower rises in three stages with diagonal buttresses and a battlemented top. Inside the church the walls hold one of England’s most remarkable sets of medieval paintings. The building has been listed Grade I for these works, which were hidden under plaster for three centuries before their discovery in 1849. The paintings date from about 1400 and cover the nave walls. On the south side Saint George fights the dragon, though the saint’s head was lost when the ceiling was lowered in the 15th century. The north wall shows a Doom painting and a Pietà, both intended as warnings against swearing. Other figures include Saint Helena and Saint Eligius. The pulpit belongs to the late 17th or early 18th century, and the chancel glass is by Kempe from 1894. Four bells hang in the tower, the oldest pair cast around 1470 by William Chamberlain. Visitors enter through the south porch into a plain nave lit by Perpendicular windows. The chancel contains black marble memorials and fragments of 14th- and 15th-century brasses. A 17th-century wall monument stands near the altar, and stained glass by A. Gibbs from 1864 fills a south window. The rood-loft stair on the north wall leads to the vanished rood screen. Outside, the churchyard is quiet, with the former A5130 road now closed to traffic.