The roofless interior of Old Stanmore Church

Image: © Marathon Taken: 11 Nov 2015

There are two churches in Stanmore Churchyard. The old one was consecrated in 1632 by Archbishop Laud. The new church was begun in 1849 and contains much of the furnishings of the old church. Ian Nairn in Nairn's London (1966) says "Behind a mean-minded Victorian church, the ruins of the old one are dissolving away in gentle melancholy. It was built in 1631 by Archbishop Laud to be the old religion revived, very Gothic, though using up-to-date bricks. Now it is roofless, with a mouldering Victorian tomb in the nave, and a triste churchyard around. But lovable, not horrible: bramble and roses growing up to the walls and over the mass-produced headstones; soft, tender dissolution, the kind of end that most people would wish for... Long may it stay so. Gray's Elegy should have been written here, instead of at Stoke Poges." This view from the west end shows the "mouldering Victorian tomb in the nave" mentioned by Nairn.

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