» Thursday 4 December 2008
Friends of St Mary's

The Chancel

The chancel has number points of interest. The dark oak High Altar and Reredos were gifts with the east window, of Mrs JL Butler of Carswell Manor in memory of her husband who was killed in the Great War. The reredos was designed by HS Rogers of Oxford in 1924. The carved figures in the reredos from left to right are:


Saint George

Saint Hugh

Saint Francis

The Angel Gabriel

Saint Mary

Saint Joseph

Saint Frideswide

Saint Sebastian

The south wall contains a 17th Century Italian piscina containing a beautiful alabaster carving of the Adoration of the Shephers. There is also a three-stepped sedilia of three bays adjacent to it.

The five shields in stained glass framed in wood below the south windows [14-17] are early 14th century. They are the largest shields in the diocese and almost exactly the same size as Henry III's shields in Westminster Abbey.

Probably the most fascinating part of the Chancel, however, belongs in the triangular locker in the north wall. This contains the heart of William Holcott, Lord of the Manor of neighbouring Barcote and a man of singular character and eccentricity. He died in 1575, his body being buried in the churchyard of Staple, London and his heart here in Buckland.

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