Saint Mary at Stoke

A church has existed on this site since the 10th Century. It is likely that it was one of the St Marys mentioned in the Domesday Book. The first church was probably made of wood. It was once governed by Ely, a fact lightly made much of by a politician of Stoke. In 970, King Edgar endowed St. Ethelreda (i.e. the Prior and Convent of Ely) with lands in the parish and moiety of jurisdiction beyond the bridge (3 carnicates, peopled by 9 villans, 5 bordars rising to 15, 1 serf, several plough teams). The ceremony for the donation was an occasion of great solemnity, attended by the Queen and the great churchman Dunstan. It remained the property of the convent until the Dissolution of the…

The building is made up of a small medieval church and a large Victorian extension designed by William Butterfield in 1872. The original nave (now the north aisle) has a medieval single hammer beam roof, with moulded wall plates, angels with shields at the ends of the hammer beams, and figures underneath. The angels are Victorian replacements for those destroyed by iconoclasts. The church was visited by William Dowsing. There is a medieval piscina. Richard Hall Gower is buried in a vault of the church.