St. Mary's Church, Fairford; Or, Our Set Is Complete

Our next church/town destination in the Cotswolds was St. Mary's Church in Fairford, a few miles east of Cirencester, another five-star parish church. An older church in Fairford was listed in the Domesday Book, but the present church was built only in the early 1500s, just barely Medieval, largely through the beneficence of the Tame family and the ongoing wool trade. The glory of this church is its windows--not that they are all that wonderful nor plentiful nor old--but that they are the only complete set to have survived both the reformation and the civil war, in all of England. No one knows why, although I would offer that the windows are almost entirely "educational," that is, depicting Biblical stories and events; one gets to a few popes and saints and kings and such only in the upper windows, which are difficult to see well. Nihil obstat. Of course, I took pix of all those in the lower register. But I'll post only a few, since there were many other items of interest in this church.

In the tower, bell-ringing apparatus

The great west window, a Judgment, early 16th

Hellish detail

The five-star churches, knowing their fame, always
provide ample interpretive information

Nave view

A bit of the elevation and ceiling

Some remaining original paint

Memorials, tombs

The great east window, Passion

In the quire, on the left of the tomb, old-style placards to guide you 
around the church

The misericords in this church were on full
display and appropriately profane (that is, not
sacred); woman bonking a dog for getting into
the food pot

Someone else about to get bonked

Do not sit on these railings

Another window, something about Mary; interested
me because of the use of the green

Interior corbel, typical of the period and Perpendicular

Abaft the altar

Outside again, another delicious hunky-punk

In the cemetery, Tiddles, the church cat, 1963-1980 

And a few views of the beautiful town; let us hope the tour buses
stay far away