Edith Weston is situated near the SE shoreline of Rutland Water and St. Mary’s stands prominently in the center of the village with its tall W tower and spire. The early church here likely consisted of a nave with a N aisle and chancel to which the S aisle was added in the early 13^th c. and the chancel was rebuilt at that time. The W tower and spire date from the late 14^th c. and the clerestory of the nave was also added then. The S porch is of the 18^th c. and in 1865 most of the church exterior – the chancel, N and S aisle walls and the S chapel – were rebuilt by Slater and Carpenter. The earliest surviving parts of the church, from the Romanesque period, are a section of exterior sting course on the S transept, the chancel arch responds, the N arcade of the nave and the imposts on the W and E arches of the S transept.

Edith Weston is named after Queen Edith, the wife of King Edward the Confessor. Though the village is not mentioned in Domesday Book, it is believed to have been one of the seven outliers of Hambleton which belonged to King William I in 1086. Among the description of this large group of settlements, three priests and three churches are noted in Domesday Book. There was a Benedictine priory of monks established at Edith Weston whose parent house was the Abbey of Saint-Georges, Boscherville (Seine-Maritime, France), founded around 1050 by Ralf de Tanquerville, chamberlain to William the Conqueror. Ralf’s son, William, gave the manor of Edith Weston to Edith Weston Priory in 1114 and this grant was confirmed by both Henry I and Henry II. Although the church was not mentioned in these confirmations, Henry III again confirmed this grant and it did include the land and the church of Edith Weston. The architectural sculpture in St. Mary’s is evidence of its 12^th c. existence.

Though Pevsner not does mention the exterior string course, the VCH does as possible evidence of the S transept having been here before its rebuilding in the 14^th c. VCH however suggests the stringcourse “enrichments” may be of 13^th c. date, but the chevron and very rare radial billet point more to the reuse of 12^th c. material.

Pevsner specifically notes how the abaci of the chancel arch responds and the E respond of the N arcade are “still square;” however at some point since 1960, when Pevsner was published, the corners of the abaci have been cut back to make them polygonal. The cutting back on the W side of N respond capital seems to have been done to insert the upper section of the nook shaft with its capital, so that the top of the nook shaft capital is even with the top of the respond impost; unlike the S respond and nook shaft where there is no such intervention and the tops of the respond and nook shaft capitals are even with each other. The saltire cross sections on the middle and bottom stones behind the N respond of the chancel arch become progressively larger and the stone pieces become progressively wider as they go down. This could be the way the reused stones were cut or it may suggest the reuse of some type of tapering stone, such as a coffin lid. The corresponding area on the S respond does not show this size change in its saltire crosses. The way in which the lower section of the chancel arch N respond nook shaft and the lower sections of the S respond, the W section behind it and the S respond nook shaft have all been cut back suggest that was done for the insertion of some type of screening which is no longer present.