Brailes is a village in the Sratford on Avon districty of S Warwickshire, 8 miles E of Banbury. The village is divided into Upper (E) and Lower (W) Brailes, and the church is on the N side of Lower Brailes High Street. It is a large church of coursed ironstone with a tall W tower, an aisled nave with a S porch, and a chancel with a N vestry. It is largely of 1325-72 with a 15thc tower, and was restored by William Smith from 1877-79. He rebuilt the chancel arch and the N aisle and clerestorey. The vestry was enlarged 1892-93. None of the fabric is Romanesque, but there is a section of an interesting carved shaft loose in the church.

Brailes was held before the Conquest by Earl Edwin, Earl of Mercia. Harold Godwinson's brother-in-law. In 1086 it was held by the king. It was rated at 46 hides with 100 acres of meadow, woodland 3 leagues by 2, and a mill. It also rended 20 loads (summae) of salt.

By 1130 it had passed to the Earls of Warwick, and remained in that line throughout our period. The church was given to Kenilworth Priory by Earl Roger in the reign of Henry I, and around the end of the 12thc it was formally appropriated and a vicarage established. It remained with the priory until the Dissolution.

The shaft must be from an earlier building than the present church, and appears to be 12thc in date. It is doubly enigmatic, in that both its probable function and the motif shown on face 4 are difficult to guess at. VCH is the only source to describe it in any detail, and calls this motif 'a peculiar device difficult to identify' concluding that 'it is not known to what [the shaft] belonged'. The animals and tree on the other faces suggest an agricultural iconography, while the device on face 4 could perhaps be a head or skull with military headgear.