St Mary's Church, Cholsey
This church may be best known not for itself, but for its rather famous buried residents. St Mary's is the final resting place of none other than Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan. We must admit though, at the time of visiting this site it had to be one of the neatest and well looked after old churches that we had come across, in fact we think it still is! St Mary's was actually founded as an Abbey Church by King Ethelred the Unready in about 986. Due to this there is belief that the lower part of the church tower is Saxon by design due to its cornerstones and is the last of the original Abbey Church. It was rebuilt between 1150 and 1170 but has been largely left alone ever since, no design tweaks or nobles coming in to make it fit a certain time. The arches are from the Norman era and a light extension is from the 13th century, the height of the tower was also increased about then too. It wasn't until the Victorian era that more major restorations...
