Stantonbury is on the N side of Milton Keynes and is one of the former villages of Buckinghamshire that were absorbed into the new town after its boundaries were designated in 1967. In 1913 RCHME noted that the church was in good condition and had been recently restored. The church was still in use in 1927, when the VCH described it as a small, rubble building consisting of a nave, chancel and N porch. The chancel contained the oldest fabric, seen on the S wall, and a new nave was added in the 1st half of the 12thc. An aisle or chapel was built on the S side of the chancel but later removed and in the 13thc a N aisle was added to the nave and the N chancel wall was rebuilt. The nave was shortened by 10 feet at the W end in the 15thc. The N aisle was removed, perhaps in the 16thc when the arcade was blocked and the N porch added. According to Pevsner and Williamson (1994), excavations have shown that there was a W tower. The most interesting feature was the small chancel arch, which survives but was removed when the roof collapsed in 1956 and has since been installed in St James’s church, New Bradwell (qv). No Romanesque sculpture remains on site.

Stantonbury was held by Ralph from Miles Crispin in 1086, and by Bisi, a thegn of King Edward in 1066. It was assessed at 5 hides and had a mill and a fishery rendering 50 eels, and meadow for 4 ploughs.

The overlordship of this manor passed from Miles Crispin to the Honour of Wallingford, where it remained until the 16thc. The tenancy remained in the family of Ralph, whose descendant Ralph de Stanton held it in the Pipe Rolls of 1166-67. In 1202 his daughter Amice sold 2 virgates of land to Simon de Stanton, or Simon Barry, from whom the manor takes its name. It remained in this line until the end of the 14thc at least. The church formed part of the endowment of Goring Priory, Oxfordshire according to a charter of 1181 that mentions the brothers William and Ralph Barry as the donors. It was appropriated to the priory in 1220 and continued in their possession until the Dissolution. The church remained in use into the 19thc, but by then the village was almost uninhabited. St James’s New Bradwell was built in 1857-60 to serve the settlement of workers attracted by the establishment of a new railway works founded at nearby Wolverton, and from 1860 this new church was used as the parish church. Unfortunately it was not discovered until 1909 that the paperwork needed to transfer the rights and privileges of a parish church from St Peter’s to St James’s had never been completed, causing a good deal of consternation among parishioners who thought they had been married there. In that year an Act of Parliament was therefore obtained by the patron, Earl Spencer, legalising them retrospectively.

For comments on the chancel arch, see the report on St James’s, New Bradwell. I am most grateful to Bryan Dunleavy who made the historic photographs available on his blog, Wolverton Past - History before 1970.