AYLESBURY † St Mary
St Mary’s Square
OS SP817139 GPS 51.8179N, 0.8160W
The church stands on the highest point of the town in a large churchyard surrounded by 17th- and 18th-century houses. It is large, handsome and cruciform, with an interesting outline to its lead spirelet, and has an intriguing plan full of surprises, with side chapels in unusual places. Substantially 13th-century, its character is a good deal spoilt by over-heavy Victorian restoration. A major re-ordering has closed off the W. bays of the nave and added a gallery. The fine font, c. 1180, is the prototype for a group in this and surrounding counties.
BIDDLESDEN † St Margaret
6m/10km N.W. of Buckingham
OS SP632398 GPS 52.0535N, 1.0783W
The little box-like church is remote, on the Northamptonshire border. It was once the private chapel of Biddlesden Park, part of the stable block, and is of the same date as the house, 1730, which occupies the site of a Cistercian abbey. There are undistinguished 18th-century fittings and clear glass; its charm subsisting in its situation and pleasant texture.
BIERTON † St James the Great
2m/3km N.E. of Aylesbury
OS SP836152 GPS 51.8297N, 0.7880W
Here is a really good architectural composition, with lofty 14th-century arcades and central tower on clustered piers. The walls retain much old plaster and whitewash, with glimpses of paintings peeping through here and there; the floor is a pleasant mixture of square red tiles or bricks and stone. There are several good details and fittings, including the Bosse monuments by W. Stanton.
BLEDLOW † Holy Trinity
2m/3km S.W. of Princes Risborough
OS SP778021 GPS 51.7129N, 0.8747W
Splendidly placed on the lower Chiltern slopes, on the brink of the Lyde – a chalk coombe – Holy Trinity overlooks the Vale of Aylesbury. The church contains many worthwhile things – nave arcades with carved capitals of about 1200; an Aylesbury font; fragments of wall-painting, including an amusing Adam and Eve; and a splendid S. doorway and porch, 13th–14th-century, with traces of original colouring. The whole plan is very irregular, and the inclusion of the tower within the aisles lends interest and importance to the interior at the W. end.
BRADENHAM † St Botolph
4m/6km N.W. of High Wycombe
OS SU828971 GPS 51.6668N, 0.8037W
St Botolph occupies a perfect village green setting. There is a Norman S. door, and the N.E. chapel has monuments and Tudor heraldic glass. Restored by Street, 1863–5.
BROUGHTON † St Lawrence
3m/5km E. of Milton Keynes
OS SP893401 GPS 52.0522N, 0.6979W
Churches Conservation Trust
This 14th-century church with 15th-century tower is notable for its extensive 14th- and 15th-century wall-paintings, which include St George and the Dragon, a Doom and an unusual work combining a Pietà with the Wounds of Christ.
CHALFONT ST GILES † St Giles
3m/4km S.E. of Amersham
OS SU991935 GPS 51.6316N, 0.5695W
In a village green setting, the church is approached through an old lych gate that passes under a 16th-century house. It affords an interesting development of plan throughout the Middle Ages; there are some wall-paintings.
CHEARSLEY † St Nicholas
7m/12km W. of Aylesbury
OS SP720103 GPS 51.7869N, 0.9572W
A charming place, the church lies at the foot of a steep lane below the village, which overlooks the Valley of the Thame and its rich water meadows not far from Nodey Abbey. The nave is 13th-century, the tower and chancel are from the 15th. Like Nether Winchendon nearby, it has mercifully escaped serious restoration and has a gallery which features the wooden support for the serpent, the largest of the instruments played by the band before the days of organs. There are two sets of Royal Arms, excellent modern pews and glass, a Norman font and a brass of 1462. The step down into the chancel is unusual, and the whole place has a pleasant, mellow, uneven quality.
CHETWODE: ST MARY AND ST NICHOLAS – this remnant of an Augustinian priory contains some exceptionally fine Early English work, such as the five-lancet east window
CHENIES † St Michael
4m/6km E. of Amersham
OS TQ015983 GPS 51.6748N, 0.5325W
The church must be included here; for while it is, in the main, architecturally unimportant and somewhat spoiled by ‘improvement’, it stands most delightfully among the trees above the Chess Valley, hard by the mellow brick manor house of the Cheneys and Russells and the ‘model’ cottages of the village. Its principal feature is the fabulous series of monuments to the Russells, Dukes of Bedford, and their connections, in the N. chapel. Regrettably difficult to see, they are kept separate in the locked Bedford Chapel. Nikolaus Pevsner described them as ‘a rich a store of funeral monuments as any parish church of England’.
CHETWODE † St Mary and St Nicholas
5m/8km S.W. of Buckingham
OS SP640298 GPS 51.9630N, 1.0693W
The choir or chancel of a small Augustinian priory, it became a parochial church as long ago as 1480, when the then parish church was ruinous and the monks were hopelessly impoverished. It has the best 13th-century work in Bucks., and, though some of it is reset and restored, the range of dog-toothed and deeply cut sedilia, the great five-lancet E. window, and the triple-lancet on the S. with 13th- and 14th-century glass, would be notable anywhere. The 14th-century N. chapel has become the manor pew with fireplace. There are hatchments and other good things, including the earliest heraldic glass in any English church, depicting Henry III’s coat of arms.
CHICHELEY † St Laurence
2m/3km N.E. of Newport Pagnell
OS SP904458 GPS 52.1037N, 0.6807W
Here is one of those splendid mixtures of dates and styles, from medieval to Comper, that make so many English village churches the delightful places they are. The church stands near the Hall and has a Decorated nave and N. aisle, a 15th-century central tower not unlike Sherrington, and a Classical chancel with delicate detail dated 1708, probably by Francis Smith of Warwick, who built the Hall. The central space is early Comper, and is effective. There are good Renaissance monuments to Caves and Chesters.
CLIFTON REYNES † St Mary the Virgin