Appendix B item (stones wrongly associated with pre-Conquest period)

Round-headed window built into south nave wall of St Mary's church to the west of the porch. Cut from a single block of oolitic limestone with a deep internal chamfer. On the external face the opening is surrounded by a recessed area, presumably for a shutter (Verey and Brooks 1999, 142). The outer edges of the recess carry shallow grooves. Immediately below the opening the recessed area is terminated on either side by a round-edged base set on a square plinth. These do not project in front of the recessed plane, but the area between them is cut back so that the inner edge of each base is seen in relief. These remains seem to indicate that the shutter recess is a re-cutting of an earlier recess that was flanked by small columns set on the surviving bases. The profiles of the rounded bases, all that is left of the suggested original design for this window, are too worn to support close dating. Verey thought that this window might be pre-Conquest but that the nave was early twelfth century (Verey 1970a, 87–8). The presence in St Mary's of a grave-cover dated to the first half of the eleventh century (see Ampney St Mary 1, p. 126) might also support a pre-Conquest date for the window, but nothing else in the standing fabric of the church indicates a date before the late eleventh or early twelfth century.