St Mary
Warkworth, Northamptonshire
The church is a sole survivor of a complex of medieval and Jacobean buildings which constituted first Warkworth Castle and from the 17th century a large Jacobean house.
The present church is a late Georgian building erected in the last decade of the 18th century and consecrated in September 1797.
St Mary’s, rebuilt by Act of Parliament in the 1790s replacing an even larger medieval building, is Banbury’s only Grade I listed building and its most conspicuous landmark. It was the largest parish church built in England in the 18th century, and remains among the top 1% in terms of size.
The main body of the church was built in 1790-97 to a design by SP Cockerell, the tower and portico being finally completed in 1822. The interior was remodelled in the 1860s and 70s by Arthur Blomfield, with stained glass windows and wallpaintings by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, including major artwork by the highly talented preRaphaelite artist Alfred Hassam (1842-69).
Above the high altar, in the dome of the apse, is depicted the Vision of the Throne of God from Revelation chapter 4: the rainbow, the four and twenty elders, the four living creatures, and the seven lamps symbolic of the Holy Spirit. Behind the high altar are the figures of the Twelve Apostles with appropriate symbols of their calling or martyrdom.
The stained glass is also of Blomfield’s time, the most striking windows being those at the eastern end of the nave above the galleries. The upper windows in the gallery represent scenes from the life of Jesus, while the lower windows illustrate 10 of his parables. The detailed background in all the windows well repays attention.
In the second upper window on the north side is the well known Arctic window in memory of the explorer Admiral Sir George Back, which contains sketches from his notebook, HMS Terror caught in the ice, Eskimos, polar bears, seals, reindeer, walrus and a surround of snow flakes.
