Church Micro - 2604 St. Mary's Church, Devizes Traditional Geocache
stanthews: I can't find a suitable new location for this one so , it'll have to go.
Church Micro - 2604 St. Mary's Church, Devizes
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This is my first Church Micro and I believe it’s the first in Devizes, you will be looking for a 50 ml camouflaged sample tube, parking can be found all round the church and often or not, right next to the cache, the cache is up some steps so disabled cachers may need a hand to retrieve it, This cache is outside the church grounds, happy caching.
The church was built in the early Norman occupation of Devizes in the mid 12th century. It was built outside the Castle walls for the townspeople. The church is built of ashlar and has a chancel, aisled and clerestoried nave, south porch, and west tower.There is a tradition that it is not the first church on the site, for a churchwarden told Dr. Burges (rector 1874–99) that foundations had been discovered leading north-east across the chancel through the churchyard. There is, however, no further evidence of such a building.
The present chancel, like that of St. John's, is of the later 12th century and is of two bays with quadripartite vaulting and intersecting arcading decorating the internal walls. There is no certain evidence for the plan of the western part of the original church. The position of the 13th-century south wall of the south porch suggests that by that time the nave had achieved its present length and had at least a south aisle, although probably not as wide as that which exists. The porch doorway has an inner order of the 13th century with four orders of reset 12th-century ornament in the arch, perhaps taken from the earlier south doorway. The footings of the east wall of the north aisle are thicker than those of the other aisle walls and may be 13th century or earlier.
No datable features of the later 13th and 14th centuries remain but both aisles were probably extended to their present dimensions during that period and much of the surviving walling, which incorporates many ashlar blocks of 12th-century character, may be of 14th-century construction. The appearance of the church, however, was radically altered in the 15th century. The first changes may have been in the south aisle where the walls were heightened and embattled and there was a new west window. Simultaneously the south porch was heightened to a full two storeys and provided with a stair-turret on the west. Perhaps even before that work was finished the nave arcades of five bays were rebuilt and a clerestorey, elaborately decorated on the outside, was added. The date of this work is recorded in a memorial inscription on the roof to the donor William Smith (d. 1436), a Devizes man of whom little is known. The next phase of the alterations was the refurbishing of the aisles with new windows, buttresses and roofs, the insertion of new windows into the chancel, and the enlargement of the chancel arch. Finally, but still before the end of the century, the west tower was built against the nave. The nave wall was then removed to reveal a tower arch of unusual height.
Changes made during the Reformation are described above;) the greatest structural loss was probably the removal, in 1561, of the rood-screen which had presumably been put up c. 1436. The porch was repaired in 1612 and again in 1638–9. The lower part of the west window was bricked up in 1637–8) perhaps because it coincided with a gallery floor. Two doorways were cut in the tower, presumably those at gallery level and on the outside at the base of the stair in 1697–8, and a new gallery was put in in 1706. The spirited statue of the Virgin and Child in the earlier 15th-century niche on the east gable of the nave was probably put in during the 17th century.
If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first so he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication
To view the church micro stats page, please click here
Congratulations goes to Hellspaw for thr First to Find.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Orgjrra erq oevpx jnyy naq gbc fgrc ohg bar.