Stoke Dry is a village in Rutland, sited about 3 miles SW of Uppingham. This small church of St Andrew was originally even smaller, likely consisting of just the chancel and an aisle-less nave of rectangular plan. The S aisle was added in the 13^th c. and the N aisle, S chapel and W tower in the 14^th c.. The 16^th c. saw the addition of the N porch and the S porch was constructed in the 17^th c. The Romanesque elements preserved here are a length of string course in the N wall of the chancel, the chancel arch responds and the chancel arch N respond capital. It includes a well-known representation of a bell-ringer.

A settlement at Stoke Dry is mentioned in DB but there is no reference made to a church here in 1086. At the time Stoke Dry was connected to two hides of land in nearby Lyddington held by a certain Walter from the bishop of Lincoln. Stoke Dry was part of the bishop’s manor of Lyddington which also encompassed Caldecott, Snelston and part of Thorpe by Water. The earliest reference to the church appears to be when its advowson was granted to the Hospitallers in 1220 by Gilbert de Hauville.

The en delit shaft of the S respond of the chancel arch is 12^th c. work but the base and the capital belong to the construction of the 13^th c. chancel arch; Pevsner dates the work of these chancel arch responds to c. 1120 and suggests the S capital may have been renewed in the 19thc.

The great amount of motifs here is rare on chancel arches of this region and it is difficult to determine any over-arching narrative structure from the cacophony of imagery. Indeed, it is hard to identify any specific action or individual, other than the bell-ringer who is actively engaged in ringing the bell above him. In Romanesque sculpture, representations of bell-ringers are scarce, but two other regional examples are those from the baptismal fonts in Saints Peter and Paul, Belton (Lincolnshire) and on the font from Hutton Cranswick (Yorkshire) now in the Hull and East Riding Museum. See also the discussion by Stocker & Everson in relation to their Lincolshire research, who describe this representation as follows: 'a soul in the form of a bird ascends to heaven supported by St Michael, who repulses the cat-like devil below. To the right, a ringer - representing the community of the living - tolls a bell in an upper opening' (Summoning St Michael, frontispiece).