This beautiful church was consecrated as a church in 1315 AD and has been used for worship ever since.
"The church of ST. MARY THE VIRGIN comprises chancel with north and south chapels, nave with north and south aisles, west tower, and south porch. It is built mainly of ashlar, rough-cast in part, and is roofed with Cotswold stone slates. Most of the fabric survives from the 14th century, but it is apparently of a date later than the dedication of the church and the high altar recorded in 1315.
The 14th-century features include the ogeearched north doorway, a small cusped light above the west window of the north aisle, the chancel and nave arcades of two and four bays respectively, the south window of the south chapel and the piscina beneath it, with the projection of its bowl cut away, and the south porch. The south porch has a plain inner doorway, a moulded outer doorway with dripmould and headstops, stone benching, and a small cusped light, later blocked, on each side. An upper story was added to the porch in the later 17th century. A blocked priest's door to the south chapel may also be of the 14th century. In the 15th or early 16th century some of the windows were remade or inserted, and the west tower was built. The tower, with a moulded west doorway, is of three stages and the diagonal buttresses are carried right up to form the pinnacles of a pierced and embattled parapet. The rebuilding of the tower in 1734 appears to have been superficial, designed for the accommodation of the recast bells, and to have amounted to little more in mason's work than the provision of the dated stone screens in the belfry lights.
A singers' gallery, described as handsome, was built in 1773. The placing of railings c. 1814 under the arcades of the chancel reflected the ownership of the two chapels by the impropriator, while the chancel belonged to the vicar. One of the chapels was presumably that of St. Anne, recorded in 1565, where there was an image of the saint, and in the 20th century the north chapel was used as a chapel called St. Anne's. The south chapel housed the organ, built by J. W. Walker of London in 1866, and also served as a vestry. The church was undergoing repairs in 1825, and was restored in 1850-2 under Francis Niblett and in 1870. At one of the restorations the chancel, of which the east wall had formerly been flush with those of the chapels, was doubled in length, the chancel arch was rebuilt, and the chapels were remodelled. The whole eastern part of the church, including the east ends of the nave and aisles, was reroofed, though in the western part the old trussed-rafter roofs survived with plastered ceilings and various tie-beams and posts.
The monuments include effigies, in recesses in the north aisle, of a knight of the Clifford family, of a lady of the same family, and of a civilian, all of about the early 14th century, and mural monuments to members of the Clifford, Clutterbuck, Winchcombe, and Wade families. Fragments of medieval coloured glass remain in the windows of the aisles, and the east window of the north chapel has what appears to be the remains of glass depicting the Seven Sacraments.
The font has a lead bowl apparently of the third quarter of the 12th century, one of a group of six Gloucestershire fonts from the same blocks. The pulpit of carved oak is inscribed 'William Knight, William Shering, churchmen, 1622.' There were five bells c. 1703; they were recast in 1733 by Abraham Rudhall, and a sixth, added by c. 1775, was replaced or recast by J. Rudhall in 1791. The earlier church plate was replaced by a set of solid gold for which Anne Wicks (d. 1841), the impropriator, specifically left £1,000; that set was sold in 1869 for £608 and a set of silver-gilt plate bought in its stead, the balance of £500 being used for the restoration of the church. The registers begin in 1625 and are virtually complete."
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