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- 1. St Peter and St Paul, Dinton, Buckinghamshire, England
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Parish church Dinton is in central Buckinghamshire, 3.5 miles SW of Aylesbury. The church and Dinton Hall are detached from the rest of the village, which is 0.5 mile to the SW. The church is of rubble and consists of a nave with S aisle and S porch, chancel and W tower. The 3-bay chancel is 13thc. with lancet windows in the side walls and a triple lancet (of 1868) in the E wall. The chancel arch and the blocked S priest’s doorway are also 13thc. The 12thc. S nave doorway, reset in the aisle and protected by a 13thc. porch, is the oldest feature of the church, with a justly-famous tympanum with composite beasts and a Tree of Life. The 13thc. N doorway is plain. The nave has a 13thc. 5-bay S aisle and a S clerestory of quatrefoil lights in the 3 E bays only. There is also a 13thc. W doorway, reset in the W wall of the 14thc. tower. This has reticulated bell-openings, W angle buttresses and an irregular polygonal SE stair turret that rises higher than the main parapet and has its own battlement. Work was done in the 14th-15thc., replacing windows in the nave and aisle walls. The church was restored in 1868, and again in 1951. The S doorway is described here, along with the font, which may be a remodelled example of the Aylesbury group.
- 2. St Mary, Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, England
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Parish church Haddenham is 5 miles to the SW of Aylesbury and a mile from the Oxfordshire border, on the old A418 trunk road to Thame. For a short time at the end of the 13thc. it had a market, but its charter was revoked after complaints from nearby Thame. Many of its inhabitants therefore consider it a village, the largest in the country, even though it has 5,000 villagers and its own station, library, museum, industrial area and commercial district. The village itself has Townsend to the N and Church End to the S, suggesting that it was originally in a clearing in the woodland. Church End certainly has a village character, with a large green with a duckpond surrounded by the church (to the S), and a picturesque jumble of timber-framed and thatched cottages. St Mary’s is a very large church, with an aisled nave, a chancel with N and S chapels and a W tower. The nave has no clerestory, but the combination of tall aisle arcades and big aisle windows makes it very bright. The arcades are of four bays and date from the 13thc. with cylindrical piers and moulded capitals. The aisle windows are a mixture of 14thc. flowing and 15thc. Perpendicular styles. The chancel arch is slightly earlier than the arcades; pointed but with late-12thc. capitals. The chancel is 13thc., as are its side chapels. Of these, the S is shorter and narrower and now serves as a vestry, while the N has a 13thc. piscina with dogtooth ornament, but was enlarged in the 15thc. when it was given two large Perpendicular windows. The tower is 13thc., with a W doorway and triple-lancet W window, an arcaded bell-storey and slender angle buttresses. There is no S doorway, and the N, facing the village green, is 13thc. with a 13thc. porch. The church is of coursed rubble in small pieces. Romanesque features recorded here are the chancel arch and two fonts; one in normal use in the church and the other in use as a planter outside.
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