Church Heritage Record 628019

West tower, 3-bay nave, 2-bay chancel, south aisle and porch.

[Approximate] Nave and chancel 11m (35ft) long x 4m wide (13ft), south aisle 3m wide, chancel 6m long.

A number of enclosures and monuments of possible prehistoric and Romano-British date have been recorded in the locality. Upper and Lower Radstone are shrunken medieval villages protected as Scheduled Monuments and the Northamptonshire Historic Environment Record should be consulted prior to any development of the site or area.

In terms of recorded history, Earl Hugh of Chester held Radstone in Domesday Book of 1086. No church was recorded. The earliest documentary evidence for the church is in the 13th century, when it was described as a daughter chapel of Marston St Lawrence. The church was probably built at the very end of the 12th century and beginning of the 13th – there is no evidence for Saxon fabric in the tower as mooted in the past. The tall south aisle and porch seems to have been added in the early 14th-century, at which time the belfry was raised. The nave and aisle roofs appear 15th-century.

The church was partly restored and re-roofed c1853-8. Merton College held the advowson from 1869 when it became a parish church and repaired the chancel roof in 1969 as they had chancel repair liability, which may or may not have been passed on to the present owner.  The nave was covered in lead around the year 2000. Recent repairs have left the church in good shape for the future.

The four colonies of bats, including the largest roosting colony of Natterers in the county, are welcome but sometimes untidy guests, and measures have been take to help them gain access. They tend to fly along the line of the old railway track.  There is also a small colony of Common Pipistrelle which uses the church, and sightings have been made of brown long-eared bats and the rare Leisler’s bat.

This is a fine small Grade I listed church, with a complex and fascinating development resulting in a distinctive silhouette, and with beautifully aged and mottled limestone walls. 

The oldest features are in the 3-stage west tower, which has a plain 12th-century round-headed lancet window on the ground stage west face, and c1200 bell-openings on all faces except the south. It was originally of three storeys, and the third has been heightened in ashlar in the 14th century of which date are the 2-light bell-openings with hood moulds to south and in the gables of the saddleback roof. String courses between stages and stone slate roof. Stone sundial to south side of middle stage. 

Chamfered plinth to nave and south aisle, diagonal buttresses to south aisle, offset buttresses to north. Moulded timber eaves to the north nave wall, plain stone coped parapet to south wall of south aisle and stone coping to east and west ends of nave and south aisle which are under one roof.

The nave has a north doorway with chamfered surround and hood mould, 2-light Decorated windows to either side and 3-light window to east bay with reticulated tracery, all with hood moulds. South aisle has a similar 3-light window to east wall of aisle, and similar 2-light windows to south and 3-light stepped lancet window to the west wall, all with hood moulds and label stops.

The south porch has a chamfered and hollow-chamfered doorway, small 2-light windows north and south with cusped heads and cut spandrels; stone slate roof and stone-coped gable. The inner door has a moulded arch, hood mould and label stops.

The chancel has a chamfered plinth and steeply pitched roof. Lancet windows to north and south walls with hood moulds, small low-side rectangular window to west bay of north wall level with chamfered stone surround. Priest's door to south wall with chamfer, pointed trefoil head and hood mould with serrated inner moulding. Window to the west of this with three pointed trefoil lights in rectangular chamfered stone surround. The east end has diagonal buttresses and stone-coped gable, coupled lancet window under a single hood mould.

Moving inside through the narrow tower space, an elegant, harmonious and quite spartan interior is encountered, bathed in clear light reflected by the bare stone walls. The internal tower arch is of one order, round headed and very plain the only detail being narrow imposts with a deep hollow between rolls on the inner faces only, the west face being shaved flush with the wall. 

Looking east, the early 14th-century south aisle arcade is very slender and elegant, with delicately moulded 2-centred pointed arches carried by octagonal piers, the two eastern capitals are carved with elaborate naturalistic foliage. The south aisle has a stone wall bench with oak top, piscina to east with cusped ogee head. There is a string course at sill level and polygonal brackets either side of the east window. Looking up, the low pitched nave and aisle roofs appear late Medieval, but may have been restored. Looking down the floor is of patterned Victorian tiles.

The nave is still fully pewed with dark-stained pine benches with moulded rails in 16th-century style, simple choir stalls with quatrefoil piercing. Much of this is covered in plastic in the summer outside service times as protection against bat droppings.

The chancel is early 13th-century in origin as one can see from the priest's doorway, although the double-chamfered chancel arch with shaft and capital to south and corbel to north is later, perhaps early 14th-century. The chancel has a moulded string course and encaustic tiles in the sanctuary floor. Scissor-braced roof, 19th-century. Loose stone plaque in a plain sedilia in south wall records the restoration in 1858.