St Mary's Church, Fawsley

St Mary's stands alone in the park at Fawsley, south of Daventry, looking across a park of the 1760s, which the church's entry links with Capability Brown, to Fawsley Hall. The medieval village it served has gone. Historic England lists the church Grade I, and it is filled with the tombs, brasses and box pews of the Knightley family, who lived at the hall for centuries.

The story of St Mary's

The church is older than the hall, by perhaps two centuries, the church's own entry suggests. The listing dates it to the thirteenth, fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the Knightley benefice says the villagers built it in 1206. The village did not last, and the church was left in the park on its own. The benefice counts 22 people living in Fawsley now.

The Knightleys made it their church and kept improving it from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. They rebuilt the chancel in 1690: a datestone reading DK 1690 is over the blocked priest's door on the south side. The hall is now a hotel.

What to look for

The monuments are the reason to come. The listing calls them an outstanding series of brasses, wall monuments and a tomb chest with effigies, all for the Knightleys, from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth. The finest is the tomb of Sir Richard Knightley, who died in 1534, and his wife, by Richard Parker of Nottingham. The church says it keeps its original paint, and its sides carry a procession of their sons and daughters. Then look for:

• Two sixteenth-century Purbeck marble slabs with brasses in the nave floor, among black marble tomb slabs on a stone chequer floor
• Late eighteenth-century box pews made up with sixteenth-century linenfold and tracery panels, and a hall pew in the south aisle
• Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century painted glass roundels from the Continent, and early nineteenth-century Knightley heraldic glass
• Six shields of the Washington family's arms in the east window of the north aisle, brought from Sulgrave in 1830, says the church
• An early nineteenth-century chamber organ on Greek Doric columns, painted Commandments boards, hatchments and a painted Hanoverian royal arms in the tower
• Gothick communion table, rails and clergy chairs of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century in the chancel

Outside, the west tower has three stages, a two-light Decorated window with a niche above, and a parapet on a corbel table. The church calls its churchyard fascinating.

Visiting St Mary's

The church's National Churches Trust entry says it is open daily from 9.30am to 5pm, but may be closed in bad weather to stop mud being carried in from the field. You reach it across a field and over the ha-ha by a small bridge to a small door, so wear boots in winter. The entry lists level access inside, accessible toilets nearby but not in the church, and says dogs, walkers and cyclists are welcome. Regular services are held here, so check the benefice's diary before a Sunday visit.

Getting there

Fawsley is on minor roads south-east of Badby, off the A361. The church's entry says there is parking within 250m and on the road at the church. On foot, the Knightley Way, waymarked from Badby to Greens Norton, follows the edge of Badby Woods on the Fawsley estate, and our Badby Woods and Fawsley walk follows the same country.

Nearby

Badby Woods is between the two villages, famous for its bluebells, and St Mary's, Badby is at the start of the Knightley Way. The Washington glass has its partner at St James's, Sulgrave, and the other great family church of the district is at Canons Ashby. Read our story of Fawsley and the Knightleys for the family.