St Mary's Church, Kingswood
The parish church of St. Mary the Virgin in the Gloucestershire village of Kingswood is something of a rarity, being one of very few built during the reign of George I. After the dissolution of the Cistercian Abbey in 1539 by order of Henry VIII, the people of Kingswood continued to worship in the Lady Chapel but by 1719 it had become ruinous and was unsafe. The present church was built in 1723, thus maintaining an unbroken thread of worship for almost 1,000 years. In the churchyard and nave are ancient tombs and monuments, some pre-dating the church. The simple Georgian church of 1723 was greatly altered in the 19th century. It now has an entrance porch, plain Gothic windows, a transept with a wide Early English style arch and a choir vestry to the south. The bell turret, with a hipped and sprocketted roof, houses a clock mechanism which pre-dates the church, and a bell inscribed “God Save our Queen (Anne) and Church.” , which was purchased from Samuel Oulender for £5 in 1...