Church Heritage Record 628374

3-bay aisled nave, chancel, south chapel, south porch, north porch, small west tower.

Nave c 12m (39 ft) x 5.7m (18 ft), chancel 6.5m (21ft) long, narrow north and wider south aisle.

The manor of Stoke (Dry) was mentioned in Domesday, but no church.  The Grange in the village probably belonged to the Knights Hospitallers, who held land in the area. All the possessions of the Hospitallers in Stoke Dry, including the advowson of the church, were granted to Richard Hayles of Gloucester and Nicholas Temple in 1543. Stoke Dry was a residence of the Digby family, implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. Nearby is a Deserted Medieval Village (Snelston), which the church used to serve, hence its expansion with aisles and chapel.  The site is of high archaeological potential and the Historic Environment Record should be consulted if any development of the church or site is considered.

The original church appears to have been an aisleless early 12th-century building represented by the present nave and square-ended chancel. The only remaining architectural features are two portions of stringcourse in the chancel, the responds of the chancel arch, the shafts and one of the capitals, and a piscine, all apparently of 12th-century date. This building was enlarged in the early part of the 13th century by the addition of a south aisle and a chapel was built on the south side of the chancel, the south aisle widened and connected with the chapel by an arch, and the tower probably added.  Early in the 14th century a north aisle was added, or an older one rebuilt, the beginning of an extensive remodelling of the whole fabric, which probably was not completed until about 1330.

The south porch was added or rebuilt in the 16th century, the north in the 17th. There was extensive restoration in 1898 paid for by William Campbell MA, when the chancel and north aisle were newly roofed. There were also repairs by Blackwell, Storry & Scott in the 1960s and 70s.

The west tower is square and quite thin. There is a large 13th century lancet window with hoodmould in the west wall, above it is a narrow pointed loop and clock dial. The belfry has a pointed cusped 2-light opening to each face, and a crenellated parapet above a band of blind tracery. There are no buttresses, a feature of this church.

The north and south porch inner doorways are pointed with continuous moulding and chamfered hoods, and the doorway of the south chapel is of the same character, ie 14th-century.  The north porch is gabled and plain, the outer doorway having a wooden lintel; it is probably of 17th-century date. The two-storey south porch has an upper room approached by a projecting stair from the aisle.  It has a moulded plinth, short diagonal buttresses, and a hollow moulding below the parapet. The 4-centred outer arch of the doorway is of two chamfered orders, with hood-mould, the inner order on half-round responds with circular moulded bases and octagonal battlemented capitals. The upper chamber has a projection with a small oriel window of three trefoiled lights and one on each return, corbelled out over the doorway and finishing in a high embattled moulding. Above the window, in the face of the parapet, is a large canopied niche. 

There are plain parapets on the south side of the nave. A 14th-century scroll stringcourse runs below the windows of each aisle, that on the south side being much broken. The windows of the south aisle have been altered, apparently in the 17th century, but those in the south wall retain their original wave-moulded jambs; the smaller square-headed window in the west wall appears to have been wholly renewed, or to be an insertion. In the north aisle, east of the doorway, is an unaltered square-headed window of two trefoiled lights, a similar one west of it is now partly blocked by the stair to the later upper  porch chamber.

The clearstorey is probably of the late 14th century, and has three square-headed windows on each side, except the easternmost on the south side, which is of three lights, no doubt in order to throw increased light on to the rood and rood-loft. A moulded stack rises from the east end of the south aisle.

The chancel and chapel are flush at the east end under separate roofs. There is a short length of external Norman stringcourse on the north side of the chancel. The chancel has a pointed east window of three trefoiled lights with angular Geometrical tracery; below the sill is a stringcourse. A 3-light window in the north wall, altered probably in the 17th century, has a square head with wooden lintel on the inside, but the jambs and mullions are old.

The chapel has a pointed east window of three trefoiled lights, with angular Geometrical tracery and chamfered hood-mould, and in the south wall a smaller 2-light window with quatrefoil in the head. At sill level is an external scroll stringcourse. On the south wall of the chapel and the adjoining buttress are three scratch dials.

Moving inside, the church is limewashed throughout, with many fine and important Medieval wall paintings on show. There are also remains of post-Reformation texts over a series of emblems of the Partiarchs to the clearstorey, but more importantly a St Andrew with his cross on the chancel east wall, and a St Christopher carrying Christ and St Edmund being pierced with arrows on the south wall of the south chapel. These may by late 13th century.

The latter is flanked by two archers whose headgear does indeed remind one of Native Americans, as suggested in the literature in the church, but the theory that this is a folk memory dating back to the Viking expeditions to the New World need not be afforded undue credence. One has a feathered or horned head dress; both have otherwise Medieval English garb. The intention is to depict the Vikings as pagans, savages. They are, in any case, extremely vibrant and arresting images.

Starting again at the west end, the handsome organ case stands in front of the tall pointed tower arch of two chamfered orders, the inner order on half-round moulded corbels supported on carved heads. The arch is apparently of early 14th-century date.  Looking up there is a wooden ceiling through which a single bell rope and ladder issues.

Looking east and first up, there are fine though restored 14th-century roofs to the nave and south aisle, with carved bosses. The north aisle and chancel roofs are Victorian and plain.  The nave is tightly packed with dark-stained Victorian benches with some re-used Medieval ends with poppyheads, many damaged. There is also a rather over-sized Victorian pulpit and reading desk.  Lighter stained 20th-century benches facing north in front of the arch to the south chapel. The floor is of stone flags with many ledgers dating to the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Several of the later ones are arranged around the Victorian font at the west end of the south aisle.