Hambleden, Buckinghamshire

The Virgin Mary (parish church)

The parish church of the Virgin Mary is a cruciform structure of flint and stone, in the Decorated style, but much altered and modernised, consisting of chancel, nave, transepts, south porch and an embattled western tower, built in 1721, with four turrets and vanes, containing a clock and 6 bells: the font and a door in the north transept are Norman: the stained east window is a memorial to Anna Susanna Nixon, and was erected by her daughter Augusta Eliza Scott-Murray, of The Manor House; there are three other stained windows in the chancel, as well as piscina and sedilia: in the north transept is a monument of alabaster to Sir Cope D'Oyley kt. D.L. of Chiselhampton, Oxon, and justice of Oyer and Terminer, who died 4th Aug. 1633, and to Martha (Quaries) his wife, who died in 1618, with kneeling effigies of both and of five sons and five daughters; there is also a marble monument to John Greene esq, lord of the manor of Ewdon, alias Greeneland, dated 1687: there are three stained windows in the north transept, and in the south transept a memorial window to Augusta Eliza Scott-Murray, erected by her daughter, Augusta Eliza Anna Murray and one to Rear-Admiral William Codrington C.B. d. 1888; two others erected in the nave in 1899 are a memorial to the Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith M.P. d. 6 Oct. 1891; one in the tower is to the Rev. Canon W. H. Ridley M.A. rector here 1840-82; there is a marble monument to Edward Marjoribanks, of Greenelands, dated 1868; in the nave are several monuments and fragments of brasses; and at the west end, under the tower, are other fragments of brasses and a large carved oak chest, said to have been formed from Cardinal Wolsey's bedstead: here also is a canopied monument of freestone, supported by two fluted pillars, to Raffe Scrope esq. cousin unto Henry, Lord Scrope, of Bolton, dated 1572: in 1883 the tower was raised 10 feet, refaced with flint, and stone butbresses added, the bells being also rehung: the church itself had been previously restored in 1858-9: the lady chapel was built out of a portion of the south-east transept known as the Sheepfold in 1914, in memory of the Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith M.P. and Emily Viscountess Hambleden, his widow, by their family: in 1925 the sanctuary was restepped and repaved with York and Portland stone by the 2nd Viscount Hambleden in memory of his father (Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith M.P.). and in 1930 the choir was paved, oak choir stalls and organ screen erected in memory of William Frederick, and Viscount Hambleden, by his family and friends: there are 500 sittings: in the churchyard is a mausoleum to members of the Kenrick and Clayton families and a marble memorial to the Rev. Canon William Henry Ridley M.A. rector 1840-82: a new graveyard was opened in 1889, an acre of land having been presented for the purpose by the Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith M.P. to whose memory the lych gate at the entrance was erected in 1893 by the inhabitants of Hambleden and Remenham, and to whom there is also a granite cross.