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 had to take place, but these were only repairs and new windows and flooring, the shape of the building was left alone.
Now you may wonder why there is no longer an Abbey for the church to serve. Cholsey was one of three abbeys named in the 1125 foundation charter of Reading Abbey which had been destroyed due to their sins. Their possessions has been given to Henry I who was likely to have given the order and he used them to finance the new foundation of Reading. At least this Henry built new monasteries unlike the big bully who came later!
We're lucky that the abbey church survived, but Ms Christie didn't live too far from here and so this became her final resting place. It is nice to know that the church now is pretty much the same as when she would have seen it. Much of her beloved Torquay is different, but I'm glad we got to see this one as she would have before she died!
It is a very peaceful spot and they are very informative, advising where to find their most famous resident although her gravestone is big enough and she pretty much has an entire corner to herself so it isn't too hard! The site is a very unassuming village church, well kept, well loved, and we would come back in a heartbeat!
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