Community Baptist Church
Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire
Nearly four centuries ago, the founding members of Stony Stratford Baptist Church committed to raising a building to glorify God and announce His Kingdom to the community of Stony Stratford.
Here amongst these remote water meadows near Milton Keynes you encounter the High Church changes associated with Charles l and his Archbishop William Laud.
The local person behind these changes to this 13th and 14th century church was Sir Robert Banastre. He was both the Lord of the Manor but perhaps more relevantly a member of the Court of the Green Cloth which administered the Royal Household in London.
You therefore find metropolitan improvements to this church quite out of character with most other local churches. Banastre was a city man on the make who accumulated lands and was the local collector of the infamous ship money tax.
He still presides over his changes sculpted as part of his wall tomb which is attributed to Thomas Cartwright. He looks down on stylish choir stalls with miserichords and is surrounded by improbably sophisticated paintings of prophets, evangelists and others set in shell shaped niches.
The intimacy of this chancel was upset later when his descendent Charles, Viscount Maynard removed Banastre’s classical screen to the west end of the church where it forms the basis of a gallery. Its fluted columns and classical proportions reflecting the architectural changes brought about Inigo Jones at Court during the same period, 1620's.
What does also remain is the chancel’s barrelled roof which internally is painted with stars against a blue background. This re modelling is Northamptonshire’s answer to Christopher Wren’s father’s church at East Knoyle in Wiltshire.