The Minster Church of St Mary, Stow

A highlight on the four-day Epworth to Lincoln pilgrimage walk

Highlights

• Possible foundation of St Etheldreda
• Tallest Saxon arches

Stow Minster was supposedly founded by St Etheldreda after she fled from her marriage to King Egfrith in 660. She had chosen to be a nun rather than a wife, and went on to found Ely Cathedral. As she passed through Stow, she stuck her staff in the ground, and it grew into an ash tree. A church was built to commemorate the miracle. Neither ash tree nor early church survive, and the story is first recorded in the 12th-century Book of Ely.

St Etheldreda was one of the first and most famous Saxon saints. But the astonishing church building at Stow dates from the other end of the Saxon era. It was built in 1054 by Earl Leofric and his rather more famous wife, Lady Godiva, on the site of a 9th-century building.

The building is celebrated for the soaring arches built around the central tower, the highest Saxon arches in existence. It was listed as one of the top 100 most endangered historic monuments in the world in 2006 by the World Monuments Fund. Fortunately, much work has recently been done to conserve this masterpiece of late Saxon design. The modern pilgrim route that visits here is on britishpilgrimage.org.

The church has been tinkered with over the centuries, but the elegance of its earliest architecture is still obvious. Even a series of later, pointed arches installed within the Saxon stonework to support a new tower do not show up the earlier craftsmanship.

On the far right-hand corner of the chancel arch is the oldest known Viking graffiti, a roughly scratched image of a longship. Though Danish raiders burned an early church here in 870, the graffiti is thought to be from a later raid in the 10th century, scrawled on the wall by a gloating marauder.

Stow Minster, Church Road, Stow LN1 2DD

www.stowminster.co.uk

W3W: mocked.park.flop

GPS: 53.3275N 0.6775W

The town is sometimes known by its old name, Stow-in-Lindsey. The village is on the B1241. The church is open daily from 8:30 am.