St. Mary's, Milton Keynes

Look what's lurking in Bart and Tony's backyard! This little church dates from the 13th century (but not this building, just the presence of the church). It sits surrounded by its graveyard, minding the corner of a large neighborhood park.


When we stopped by, the church had been locked because of vandals. But while Tony, Charles and Iain walked the dogs nearby, Bart and I poked around the grounds. When we saw a couple of people with keys arrive...we figured we'd had a stroke of luck. Sure enough, they'd come to work on the organ, and they let us take a little tour inside.


Here's the altar, complete with a beautiful stained glass window.

In another window, the glass is clear, but the pattern intricate:

From inside, that's especially lovely.

This venerable fellow is Thomas Stafford, who died in 1607 (age 80). That's the same year the English settled Jamestown, Virginia. He left behind one surviving son (of four) and 3 daughters, each of whose marital history is detailed on his commemorative slab.


The pastor gives his sermon from on high, one of the characteristics of traditional protestant worship opposed by adherents of the Great Awakening (in the 18th century). They liked to bring the pastor down to the people, to eliminate many of the boundaries among parishioners, and to emphasize equality before god.

Back in the altar area, there's this little bench. Do the altar boys sit here? We didn't know.

Outside again, we looked for interesting graves. Perhaps because of the site or the climate, most of the graves were relatively new (19th century). Some looked like this:

So we could hardly read the words, and spent a fun ten minutes arguing about whether someone died in 1744 or not. IN a place like this, I think you really have to do rubbings to figure out the dates. Your eyes are useless.

Bart and I agreed that it was a jewel. This is what I mean when I say that Milton Keynes has a lot to offer - the city may be new, but nothing in England is really new.