page_title: Stretton-on-Fosse
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Stretton-on-Fosse / History / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: Side view of the church, including some old tombstones; St Peter Church in Stretton-on-Fosse, Cotswolds
context_page_description: Stretton-on-Fosse is a small village and civil parish with fewer than 200 houses, most built of Cotswold stone or locally-made red brick, situated on the Warwickshire-Gloucestershire border on the fringe of the Cotswold Hills. It is governed by the Stratford-on-Avon District council. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 439. By comparison, the 1931 population was 282. The village has about 200 buildings, made of Cotswold stone or locally made red bricks. Of these, 18 are Grade II Listed by Historic England. At one time, the village was known as Stretton upon Fosse.
  Some of the current cottages were previously used for other purposes, such as Tea Cosy Cottage which was the village post office in the early 1900s and The Bakery cottage which retains its old bread oven.
context_section_description: The site contained a church since the late 12th when it was presented to residents by Ralph le Breton. Originally, it was a chapel of the nearby village of Blockley. The current Grade II Listed building, St Peter church, made of Cotswold stone and roofed with slate, was erected in the late 16th Century. Since then, it has been extensively modified; in 1841, for example, it was rebuilt and enlarged. A 1949 description of the building provides these specifics:
   The parish church of ST. PETER ... consists of a chancel with a south vestry, nave (50 ft. long), and a west porch and bell-turret. No ancient architectural features remain. The small chancel has a traceried east window of four lights; the nave, divided by buttresses into four bays, has a two-light window in each bay in the north and south walls. The entrance is at the west end from a porch that is flanked by a small north chamber and a south staircase to a gallery. Over the porch is an octagonal bell-turret lighted by windows in gables, the whole crowned by a small stone spire. The walls are of ashlar, the roofs covered with slates.
  
  A recent report describes the interior of this Grade II listed church:
   The interior is simple and unpretentious, and darker than one might expect despite it's [sic] cream-washed walls (in this case owing to adjacent trees on the south side, rather than an abundance of stained glass, the usual culprit!). The furnishings are mostly of a piece with the building, including the west gallery which supports a modest organ. The only later additions appear to be the mural painting that enlivens the paneling behind the altar (eucharistic symbols along with SS Peter & Paul, difficult to appreciate in the low lighting) and the two stained glass windows at the east end of the nave (late 19th and early 20th centuries respectively).
  The now deserted medieval village of Ditchford Frary (1066 to 1539) stood about a mile south-east of St Peter church on the Paddle Brook stream. In 1086, Ditchford Frary was held by Robert de Stafford. At one time, the settlement included St. Giles chapel. In 1410, its "mother church" was Great Wolford; the chapel was a ruin by the 17th century and the rectory was annexed to Stretton in 1642. Earthwork evidence of the chapel still existed at the time of the Ordnance Survey of 1967.
caption: Side view of the church, including some old tombstones
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