St Mary the Virgin
Alton Barnes, Wiltshire
This Grade I church is to be found in a farmyard setting.
The Perpendicular tower of this lovely medieval church dominates surrounding fields. It stands just across the stream from St Mary's at Alton Barnes, and the churchyard yew tree is said to be 1700 years old!
Inside it is lime-washed and barn-like, with big rustic roof trusses and open timbering. The chancel arch is all that remains of the church's Norman past. The rest of the church dates from late medieval times, except for the body of the chancel which was rebuilt in the nineteenth century.
The church still contains Jacobean choir stalls, unusually tall communion rails and a 1590 tomb. A mysterious trapdoor conceals a buried Sarsen stone (a sandstone block).