St Mary's Priory Church, Deerhurst

About

St Mary's Priory Church, Deerhurst, is the Church of England parish church of Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, England. Much of the church is Anglo-Saxon. It was built in the 8th century, when Deerhurst was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia.

It is contemporary with the Carolingian Renaissance on mainland Europe, which may have influenced it. The church was restored and altered in the 10th century after the Viking invasion of England. It was enlarged early in the 13th century and altered in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The church has been described as "an Anglo-Saxon monument of the first order". It is a Grade I listed building. From the Anglo-Saxon era until the Dissolution of the Monasteries St Mary's was the church of a Benedictine priory.

Deerhurst has a second Anglo-Saxon place of worship, the 11th-century Odda's Chapel, about 200 yards southwest of the church.