Lower Slaughter Church of St Mary (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Lower Slaughter.
In the historic county of Gloucestershire.
Modern Authority of Gloucestershire.
1974 county of Gloucestershire.
Medieval County of Gloucestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SP16572261
Latitude 51.90183° Longitude -1.76058°

Lower Slaughter Church of St Mary has been described as a probable Siege Work.

There are no visible remains.

This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Comments

The church is C19 with some C13 work but with nothing to suggest the form of the C12 church or what works were done to convert it into a 'castle.' However, the context of Foliot's letter must suggest a temporary work with, at most, some earthworks and timber hoarding. Was this a siege work of Upper Slaughter Castle or a roadblock and taxation point of the Gloucershire Way/Fosse Way/Ryknild Street junction? Gatehouse suspects more the later with the church occupied as a base by a gang of armed men making use of the breakdown of order during the Anarchy to extort money from travellers. Such a group would have relatively little need for a 'fortified' base since their response to a re-imposition of law and order would be to flee, but a stone built building with a tower would be useful as a base and lookout.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1089920
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 8209.

Books
- Renn, D.F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain (London: John Baker) p. 336
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Morey, A. and Brooke, C.N.L., 1965, Gilbert Foliot and His Letters (Cambridge University Press) No. 5, 35, 85

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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