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St. Mary's Church
Photos by
John Wilkes of Cam
near Dursley, Gloucestershire
The Gloucestershire Photo Library

Page composition by Allan Taylor of Vancouver, Canada

St. Mary Magdalene's in Elmstone Hardwick is an isolated church in the parish also known as Uckington. It originally belonged to the Benedictine priory at Deerhurst. It has a 'Perpendicular' style (15th C) tower. The church consists of this tower, a nave, chancel, south aisle and south porch. The ashlar-masonry tower has three stages and a 'Perpendicular' west doorway. Below the west bell-opening in the tower there is a niche with a sculptured image in place. The bell-openings have hoodmoulds terminating in stops carved with figures, some playing musical instruments, and above are gargoyles and an embattled parapet. The church was restored in 1871-8. The south porch was built in the 19th C and the south aisle was largely refaced, but the beautiful east window with flowing tracery and a hood-mould terminating in stops carved with 14th C heads were kept. The chancel has 'Decorated' 14th C windows and there is a small 19th C north vestry. The windows on the north side of the nave are 19th C and are in the 'Decorated' style.

The two west bays of the nave are Norman with plain arches on rectangular piers with chamfered imposts; the remaining three bays are 19th C. The chancel walls have been scraped bare of plaster. The stone reredos, which was erected in 1886, is elaborately carved with eight saints under crocketed canopies with pinnacles. The font is 15th C and has an octagonal bowl with panels containing quatrefoils having centres of four-leafed flowers and roses. The font cover is 18th C.

There are wall tablets, displayed on this page, in and by the church, commemorating the following people:- Sarah Buckle and Edith Pearce; Joseph Buckle and his wife Ann and her father Charles Hancock, and Joseph and Ann's daughters, Louisa Jenkins Buckle and Mary Ann Buckle; Jane Buckle daughter of Thomas Buckle; Mary Buckle, Joseph and Edith Pearce; Harry Theyer Brookes; John and Elizabeth Buckle and their eldest daughter Sarah; Gershom Wood; Augusta M. Byron, Emily Byron, Captain Byron and Sarah, widow of Rear Admiral Richard Byron, and Rev M. Byron; John Buckle and his wife Mary Surnam; gallant war heroes who died in WWI - Reginald John Smith, Albert William Stephens, James Robert Burford, John Edwin Davies, Harry Pryce, Caleb Ryles, Sydney Theyer, Ernest Harris, and Edward Jesse Goodall; similar heroes who perished in WWII - Ernest Holland, Victor Webb, Dennis Smith, and John Francis Reay.