OPEN TO THE FUTURE HOW TO FIND US RE-ORDERING PROJECT Deerhurst village lies on the bank of the The of River Severn, 4 miles south of Tewkesbury by road. priory church To mark the millennium of the Exit the M5 at J9, drive towards Tewkesbury, following st. mary, deerhurst martyrdom of St Alphege, a major signs for Gloucester on the A38, after 3miles turn project has been carried out to right onto B4213. At the sharp left bend, turn right to improve the church interior and Deerhurst. Post code: GL19 4BX. install new facilities. The St Alphege chapel provides private prayer space and contains a new altar specially made by local craftsman Brian Lovejoy. Removal of pews in the north east corner has created a fl exible space with better access to a group of brasses. One of the brasses in the north east corner VISITING AND TOURS marks the grave of To arrange an accompanied group visit with guide Sir John Cassey, Chief please contact the Visitors Offi cer: Baron of the Exchequer, Mrs Sheila Ryan who died in 1400. His Telephone: 01452 780107 wife, Dame Alice lies Email: [email protected] beside him; a dog, Terri, at her feet. FURTHER INFORMATION Friends of Deerhurst Church: A generous bequest Website: www.deerhurstfriends.co.uk from a parishioner Local History and Heritage: funded the installation Website: www.apperleydeerhursthistory.co.uk of a more powerful Apperley & Deerhurst Village website: www.apperley-deerhurst.co.uk organ, gifted to the church when a chapel Deerhurst with Apperley PCC acknowledges with gratitude its in Painswick was closed. key sponsor, Gloucestershire Environmental Trust. Their substantial grant towards the Open to the Future project The heating system will supported the production of this publication. be upgraded and the A Guide former boiler house has to the distinctive history been converted to a WC of this remarkable church with disabled access. THE STORY OF ST MARY’S CHURCH ST. ALPHEGE A UNIQUE ARCHITECTURAL LEGACY St. Mary’s church was established on the banks of MONK OF ST MARY’S PRIORY The church has many fi ne features that display its the River Severn as a place of worship in the Anglo-Saxon heritage. middle of the eighth century. The earliest evidence The double-headed documents the existence of a religious community opening, high on the dating back to AD 804. Despite many changes of west wall of the nave, fortune, the building has retained its legacy as an suggests that there outstanding example of Anglo-Saxon design and were extra fl oors leading construction. to the interior room that is now the ringing The original chamber. building followed the basic rectangle The church building is pattern common to also distinctive for its the period. original stone sculptures. Modifi cations were Eleven beasts heads remain; two on the chancel made overover timetime,, archarch in their ororiginaliginal positionspositions.. TThehe beastsbeasts’’ heads with the addition of on either side of the inner door are ‘label stops’ that aisles around 1200 were previously on the outer and the tower in the door. Those on either side 14th century. of the chancel arch provide The ruins of the Alphege was born in 953 and began his monastic evidence of the colours used to decorate the carvings. seven-sided apse life at Deerhurst, where he is reputed to have found remain. the regime too lax. He moved away to live near Bristol, became Abbot of Bath and then Bishop of The Saxon font at Winchester. Later, as Archbishop of Canterbury, the west end of the he was captured and ransomed by the Danes, but north aisle was forbade the ransom and was killed in 1012. thrown out of the The millennium of his martyrdom has been church in 1653. honoured by the creation of a chapel dedicated to Its top was the Saint at the West end of the South aisle, under rediscovered in a the 15th century window containing his image. The stone head of farmyard in 1845 an angel on the and the stem THE ESTATE AND ITS OWNERSHIP side of the ruined found near a local apse and the pub in 1868, when After Earl Odda died in 1056, the estate reverted to carved image of the two parts were Edward the Confessor. The land was later given to the Madonna over reunited. The spiral Westminster Abbey and the church to the the inner doorway ornamentation Benedictine monastery of St Denis near Paris, are the original suggests it was becoming a cell of Tewkesbury Abbey. During the carvings. carved around 800. Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII, it became a parish church.