St. Mary the Virgin, Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire

Description

The parish church of St. Mary the Virgin, standing on the brow of a hill, is a structure of flint and rubble in the Early English and Decorated styles, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells, and was built in 1852 at a cost of £1,800, replacing a twelfth-century church which was pulled down; the pulpit, the gift of Sir John Stewart Stewart-Wallace C.B. was given in 1937; the seats are all of oak: King Charles II. is said to have visited this church, and noticing that the communion table was without a frontal, took off his cloak and laid it on the table; part of the cloak has been framed and glazed, and now hangs on the walls of the church: there is a palimpsest brass with, on the obverse, an effigy of Margaret, wife of Edward Bulstrode, 1540, and a group of 10 sons and 3 daughters, with a mutilated shield and inscription: on the reverse is another inscription to Thomas Totyngton, Abbot of Bury St. Edmund's, who died in 1312, though the engraving is later: the group of children has been cut out of the effigy of a bishop or abbot, c. 1530; on the reverse of the shield is a representation of the Resurrection; there are also braases to Robert Fulmer, 1498, and Joanna his wife, and a mural tablet to the men of this parish who lost their lives in the Great War, 1914-18: under the tower is a table of the Ten Commandments, painted on canvas and dated 1664, with an illustration of a breach of each: the Perpendicular font has an octagonal basin, adorned with a Tudor rose and other carvings: there are 200 sittings.

Church Records

The parish register dates from the year 1538.