The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Aylesbury, is an Anglican church of the Diocese of Oxford, in the centre of the town of Aylesbury. There is evidence of a church from Saxon times, but the present building was built sometime between 1200 and 1250, with various additions and alterations in the 14th, 15th, 19th and 20th century.
The church is one of the most recognisable sights of Aylesbury; its ornate clock tower dominates the skyline. The church is currently a Grade I listed building as it is a building of exceptional interest.
History Saxon period Aylesbury possessed a church in Saxon times; 19th-century renovations to the chapel revealed the remains of an ancient crypt, with stone steps leading from the church in the west end of the crypt, and were uncovered as fully as possible without encroaching on the south transept. There is one prominent arch in it, which those competent to decide have unhesitatingly pronounced to be Saxon. The crypt was probably the remains of an old Saxon church, possibly dating from circa 571 when Aylesbury was a Saxon settlement known as Aeglesburge.
Probably in troublous times this subterraneous chamber was used for worship but later it appears to have been used as a charnel house: piles of human bones were found within. These were removed and re-interred in the churchyard.
It is not impossible that this may have been the very site of the Saxon building where St. Osyth is said to have been buried in the 9th century. St. Osyth's burial site in Aylesbury became a site of great, though unauthorised pilgrimage; following a papal decree in 1500, the bones were removed from the church and buried in secret. However much, if any, of this has a historical basis; it is even uncertain whether there were two Osyths or one, since both Aylesbury and Chich claim her relics. However, what appears to be known is that following her death in AD 700 her father, King Redwald (in some accounts Penda), and mother, Wilburga, took her to Aylesbury to be interred.
12th century The existence of an earlier building to the one now standing may be inferred from the beautiful Norman font found within the church and the existence of other artefacts of the same age. These were found buried in debris beneath the church in the 19th century. The font in particular was found in three fragments and work was done to repair it. This font can be found at the west end of the church today and has given its name to a particular style of font known as the "Aylesbury Fonts". These fonts are normally dated late in the 12th century around the years 1170 to 1190.
The early ecclesiastical history of Aylesbury is confusing and difficult to unravel. The church was a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral. It will be seen that the Prebendary of Aylesbury was attached to the See of Lincoln as early as 1092. An early account states "It is said that a Bishop of Lincoln, desired by the Pope, give the Personage of Aylesbury to a stranger, a kinsman of his, found means to make it a Prebend, and to incorporate it to Lincoln Church." Thus, in the reign of Edward III, Aylesbury Church was part of the Deanery of Lincoln, and a separate stall in that cathedral was set aside for the dean.
During excavation work in recent years a 12th-century cloister and a conduit pipe were identified.
13th century The church as it stands today is supposed to have been erected at some date between 1200 and 1250 with various additions and alterations during the reign of either King John or Henry III of England. Originally the church was a strictly cruciform design which is to say with a; chancel, nave, transepts and tower. It still retains substantially that form, though altered and modified at various periods.
During the 11th through 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals and smaller parish churches occurred across Western Europe. Aylesbury seems to have been part of this. In addition to being a place of worship, the church at this time would have been used by the community in other ways. It could have served as a meeting place for guilds or a hall for banquets. Mystery plays were sometimes performed, and they might also be used for fairs. The church could have also been used as a place to thresh and store grain.
14th century One of the most interesting portions of church is that of the Lady Chapel which is a beautiful erection of the 14th century. In this chapel an old sedilia (stone seats, found on the liturgical south side of an altar) was found in the wall in their proper position.
It is supposed that the old fabric of the church extended no farther than the nave, having a high pitched roof springing from the walls. The light thus obtained being insufficient, it is thought that the clerestory, and the flat roof, were added in the 15th century. The east ends of the north and south chapels were probably extended about the same time, so as to form two larger chapels known today as the Chapel of St George and the Chapter House.
15th century In 1450, a religious institution called the Guild of St Mary was founded in Aylesbury by John Kemp, Archbishop of York. Known popularly as the Guild of Our Lady it became a meeting place for local dignitaries and a hotbed of political intrigue. The guild was influential in the final outcome of the Wars of the Roses. Its premises at the Chantry in Church Street, Aylesbury, are still there, though today the site is occupied mainly by almshouses. It is likely the incumbent at St Mary's would have been paid to perform a stipulated number of masses during a stipulated period of time for the guild in the chapel.
According to a tablet formerly in the church and dated as far back as 1494, John Stone of Aylesbury gave by will two tenements to the parish. The rents of which were to be applied to maintain a clock and chimes in the tower of Aylesbury Church for ever.
The tower piers began to fail at an early period, and from time to time various expedients were resorted to, to strengthen them. An arch between the south-east pier and the transept must evidently have been frightfully crushed as early at least as the 15th century when it was blocked up and the pier buttresses both towards the transept and the lady chapel. At the same time the southern and eastern arches of the tower itself appear to have been much injured and to have lost their true curves. It might possibly have been about the same time that the arch on the west side of the transept was walled up and the south-west pier of the tower buttressed on its south side.
During this period it is thought the Lady Chapel and sacristy (now called the vestry) was constructed on the east side of the north and south transept respectively. The sacristy is to appearances the oldest part of the building today. An oaken wardrobe in which is an ingeniously incorporated a swinging horse on which the priest's vestments were hung is still found in the church to this day and dates from the 15th century. There is also a strong locker in which it is supposed the sacred vessels were deposited. Above the sacristy is a room called the priest's chamber or priest's hole. The walls of this corner of the building are of immense strength, and the door is a very massive and remarkable one of the 15th century.
16th century At a much later period (as is shown by the date 1596 upon the stonework) the remaining sides of the south-west pier were encased in stonework. A little later still in 1599 the same operation was performed on the north-west pier, and probably at the same time the arch abutting against it was walled up.
King Henry VIII had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church in England in February 1531. The following acts which led to the dissolution of the monasteries impinged relatively little on English parish church activity. Parishes that had formerly paid their tithes to support a religious house, now paid them to a lay impropriator, but rectors, vicars and other incumbents remained in place, their incomes unaffected and their duties unchanged. In 1534 the church became part of the newly formed Church of England, forever separated from the Roman Catholic Church
In 1536 almost a third of the county of Buckinghamshire became the personal property of King Henry VIII. Henry VIII was also responsible for making Aylesbury the official county town over Buckingham, which he is alleged to have been done in order to curry favour with Thomas Boleyn so that he could marry his daughter Anne Boleyn. This set the church on a path of expansion to the church it is today.
Under his son, King Edward VI, more Protestant-influenced forms of worship were adopted. Under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, a more radical reformation proceeded. A new pattern of worship was set out in the Book of Common Prayer (1549 and 1552).
Henry VIII and his son Edward VI dismissed Catholicism and its trimmings. Then pro-Catholic Mary Tudor became queen. She attempted to re-establish the Catholic faith, including efforts to replace damaged, defaced and destroyed church artefacts. Mary was too late to prevent the whitewashing of church interiors and many irreplaceable wall paintings were lost.
In the north transept is an alabaster monument to Lady Lee, wife of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, personal Champion to Queen Elizabeth I. It was formerly profusely ornamented with gold and colouring and is of the time of Elizabeth I, as Lady Lee died in 1584.
Aylesbury Grammar School was founded in 1598 following a bequest from Sir Henry Lee and its first home was inside the church. The grammar school ran from 9am and 2pm. One of the trustees of the school was the Vicar of Aylesbury
17th century
In 1611 the Aylesbury Grammar School moved to what was then church buildings. These buildings now house the County Museum. The school remained here until 1907.
In 1622 the south-east pier underwent a second buttressing, and at perhaps some other period the casing was built round that to the north-east, and its arches walled up. This is proof that in one instance at least (that of the south-west pier) the second casing failed at an early date, as is shown by the large clamps which have been added to it. There have subsequently there been continued failures in casing of both of the western piers.
On Aylesbury Church there are no monuments from the 17th century or before, and it did not at the time of its restoration in the 18th century contain a single particle of ancient coloured glass. Therefore, the church during this period is said to have undergone some exceedingly rough usage. During restoration work in the 19th century, they opened some of the closed archways prior to beginning work. Injuries to the building were to be observed inflicted on the ornamental stone work, which could not have been the result of accident. This damage was ascribed to the period of the English Civil War during the reign of King Charles I. Exposed as the Aylesbury district was to the full force of the mischievous effects of the civil commotions of that period, it would indeed have been extraordinary if this church above all others had escaped the ravages and excesses of those unfortunate times, when the noblest ecclesiastical structures of our country were plundered, defamed, and defaced. Let us not forget the so-called Battle of Aylesbury on 1 November 1642. Indeed, in August 1642, Nehemiah Wharton, a Parliamentarian soldier, writes from Aylesbury, telling his friends how they attacked a man called Penruddock, whom he called a Papist. He said the attack was because he had been "basely affronted by Penruddock and his dog". Finally he adds that he and his men "showed their zeal" and "got into the church, defaced the ancient and sacred glazed pictures, and burned the holy rails".