St Sampson, Cricklade

St Peter, Codford

St Martin, Zeals

St Martin sits in the pretty village of Zeals, a short drive from the famous house and gardens at Stourhead. It's a tranquil spot, despite the faint roar of traffic on the A303 nearby.

The church is an early example by George Gilbert Scott, and was paid for by the Grove family of nearby Zeals House. The design adopts Decorated Gothic throughout, and reflects the growing confidence and maturity of Scott in the Gothic Revival style, which he adopted only a few years before. It was completed in 1846. 

The church comprises a nave, chancel, north vestry and south porch, with a tower and spire added in 1876. The latter is something of an idiosyncratic design, with a two-stage square tower, surmounted by an octagonal upper bell-stage with angled pinnacles, and topped with a spire, which is itself detailed with little gabled windows.

The interior is dominated by the triple-moulded chancel arch and the hammer-beam roof, the east beams of which sit against the east nave wall, and seem to bounce off the chancel arch. The windows in the chancel all contained stained glass; the tracery of the three-light east window is particularly delicate and attractive.

The furnishings are all Victorian, and include a Sweetland organ and a banner of St Martin in the pre-Raphaelite style, donated by Julia Chafyn Grove, who inherited the Zeals estate in 1865.

The church has a weekly mid-week Communion and a Sunday service once a month, shared as part of the Upper Stour benefice.

St Martin, Portnells Lane, Zeals BA12 6NL

St James, Avebury

St Mary, Marlborough

St John the Baptist, Mildenhall

St Mary, Chilton Foliat

St John the Baptist, Devizes

The market town of Devizes is known for having one of the largest concentrations of listed buildings in the country - the historic centre boasts over five hundred. Among this impressive array of architecture and history, St John's holds its own: an example of Norman architecture of outstanding quality.

Built - along with the nearby castle - around 1130, both were the legacy of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. Of Roger's church, the chancel and tower survive virtually intact; the transepts are also clearly Norman but with later additions. The nave of 6 bays was rebuilt in 1450 (albeit the westernmost bay and West front dates from 1863) in the Perpendicular style, to which two chantry chapels were added, flanking the chancel: the grander Beauchamp Chapel to the south, in 1492, and the Lamb chapel to the north,  around 1483.

Looking from the west end, the interior is one of clear contrast: the slender Perpendicular nave arcade draws the eye to the low, Norman crossing arch, barely half the height of the east nave wall: the space above the arch - now blank and scraped - must surely have once hosted a wall painting, presumably a Doom? Passing through the arch, we enter an intimate and purely Romanesque space, and one of very high quality: the chancel has ribbed stone vault, its arches carrying an abundance of dogtooth and zig-zag. The capitals mirror this quality and include a splendid Green Man, but best of all is the intersecting blind arcading of the Sanctuary, with scale pattern above the spandrels. Sympathetic furnishing adds to the atmosphere. The East window, although in the same style, is in fact a Victorian replacement.

The furnishings include a fine array of 18th century memorials, and a Jacobean brass to John Kent (d. 1630), the Town Clerk, and his wife - oddly set into a later memorial stone dated 1788.

The church today remains the centre of a busy parish life, with concerts and talks, in addition to the pattern of regular Worship.

St John the Baptist, High St / Long St, Devizes SN10 1PA

St Cyriac, Lacock

Many visiting the wonderfully preserved and atmospheric village of Lacock and the adjacent Lacock Abbey never make it as far as the church. This is a pity, as it has much of interest.

The present building replaced an earlier Norman church, and oldest parts are its transepts, and date from around 1300. The rest of the church was rebuilt on the back of the area's wool wealth in the 15th century, in the Perpendicular style. The impressive Lady Chapel was added around 1430; and in the 17th century a peculiar "church cottage" of three storeys was attached to the south transept. Restored by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1861, the chancel was remodelled in 1902 as a memorial to the photographic pioneer (and owner of nearby Lacock Abbey) William Henry Fox Talbot. A more recent claim to fame is that in 2006 it hosted the wedding of Laura Parker Bowles, daughter of the Queen Consort.

The interior comprises a three-bay with aisles, and is impressive throughout for its height, including the transepts which are unusually lofty and impressive, and match the nave and clerestory combined. The most impressive part is, however, the Lady Chapel, which has a splendid vaulted ceiling, still bearing traces of original paint. Here lies the church's most important monument, to Sir William Sharington (d. 1553). His tomb chest is dated 1566, and is early Renaissance in style: Pevsner regards it as "one of the finest 16th century pieces of decoration in England".  It combines delicate strapwork, arabesque and shell decoration, and two putti. Again, traces of colour survive.

The church has another monument of interest, a brass to Robert Baynard (d.1501) and his wife and eighteen children - fifteen boys and five girls. It appears from the brass that all the children survived infancy.

The church is open during daylight hours for visitors, and has regular services as part of a combined benefice with Corsham.

St Cyriac, Church Street, Lacock SN15 2LB

St Michael, Melksham

Like many churches in this part of Wiltshire, St Michael's size and architecture testifies to the wealth derived from wool in the late Middle Ages. It sits apart from the town centre in a spacious churchyard, with an enclave of charming period buildings.

Although the church's Perpendicular appearance reflects rebuilding in the 15th Century, there are traces of Norman frieze and arcading in both the chancel and the west wall, indicating the original Norman church was of similar size. The nave arcades of five bays are late 13th century work, although the clerestory, two-storey North porch and the impressive Lady Chapel date from the 15th century. The tower was moved in during the restoration in 1845 from its original crossing position to the west. The result is a spacious church with many attractive wall tablet monuments, and some nice glass by Kempe, although the walls are sadly scraped of plaster. An oddity is the offset chancel arch; the east nave wall around it contains a painting of the Transfiguration, painted in 1921, in the sentimental style typical of the period.

The parish today comprises the churches St Michael's, St Andrew's and St Barnabas, and offers a range of worship styles with a growing congregation. On our visit, we were warmly welcomed and offered a guide to the church, tea and biscuits!

St Michael, Canon Square, Melksham SN12 6LX

St Andrew, Chippenham

St Matthew, Rowde

All Saints, Chitterne

The village of Chitterne sits hidden in a fold of Salisbury Plain, its church of All Saints is a Victorian replacement for two mediaeval parish churches.

The church was built in 1863, to the designs of Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807-1880). At one time president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, he was particularly prolific in Wiltshire, designing or overseeing the restoration of over 50 churches. Built of flint and stone in a chequerboard pattern, All Saints has a stout west tower, and a large nave of four bays with broad aisles and clerestory, all executed in the Perpendicular style. The chancel is a rather more modest affair, a polygonal apse just half the height of the nave. The spacious interior is plastered but not whitewashed, and pleasantly bright, despite the prevalence of Victorian stained glass.

The furnishings include a Norman font, with a series of plain roundels at the foot of the bowl for decoration. The pulpit is also from the earlier church, a pretty example of Jacobean woodwork. The chancel of the old St Mary's survives half a mile away, still in use as an occasional mortuary chapel.

The church hosts services on the second and fourth Sundays of each month, with a 10:30 all age family service of communion on the second and an 9am said communion on the fourth. There is also a monthly prayer and bible study on the first Sunday of the month.

All Saints, Townsend, Chittern BA12 0LG

St Michael & All Angels, Urchfont

All Saints, Idmiston

All Saints is a delightful church, nestled in the lovely Bourne Valley between Salisbury and Andover. In the care of the Churches Conservation Trust since 1978, it is renowned for its fine set of decorative corbels, in the form of carved heads.

The tower is Norman, but heavily restored (the pyramidal cap is Victorian); inside both nave with its 2 bay arcades and the chancel are 13th Century, the chancel retaining its simple Early English lancets. The arches of the arcade and the tower arch are made of alternating grey and green stone, a surprisingly effective form of decoration. The aisles, clerestory, panelled wooden roof and two-storey north porch are all late 14th or early 15th century Perpendicular.

The 37 corbels inside and the gargoyles outside provide a fine gallery of mediaeval carving: these include heavily bearded men (one of whom holds his jaw - presumably a representation of toothache), women with a variety of headdresses, kings and angels. It is thought some may represent villagers.

Fittings include a fine 17th Century monument to Giles Rowbach (d. 1633), depicted kneeling at an altar; a sturdy 14th century octagonal font in Purbeck marble; and memorials to the Bowle family, including John Bowle (1725-88), known for his translation of Don Quixote.

St Michael, Mere

Malmesbury Abbey

Founded as a small monastic community in 672AD by the Irish monk Maidulph, Malmesbury is England’s oldest borough (880), one of England’s oldest Christian sites, and one of its greatest mediaeval monasteries. To-day it survives as a parish church, and contains one of the masterpieces of European Romanesque art.

After Maidulph’s death in 675, the leadership of the community was given to St Aldhelm, nephew of the Saxon King Ine, who is generally regarded as the founder of the Abbey proper, in 676. The present church was consecrated in 1180, and expanded as the monastery grew in prestige and wealth, especially in the period from 1260 under William of Colerne. Royal visits by Henry III and Edward I demonstrate the importance of the Abbey by the 13th century, and at its zenith in the 14th century, it featured a spire over 431ft (131m) high, greater even than that of Salisbury.

Alas, this achievement was also its undoing, as at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, the tower collapsed, taking the crossing, transepts and chancel with it. All that remains of this area are two great crossing arches, and a wall of the south transept. Further disaster came with the Dissolution in 1539, when the Abbey was sold to a local clothier, and given to the townspeople as their parish church, and the other monastery buildings demolished.

The Abbey continued to decay further, not helped by another disaster – the collapse of the Western tower in the 16th century, demolishing the first two bays of the nave. In the Civil War, Malmesbury is said to have changed hands between the Royalists and Roundheads seven times, and the church walls are riddled with pock-marks from the bullets and shot. By the 18th century, it was being used for storing hay, and housing pigs and donkeys.

The church was saved by thorough restoration in the 20th century, and it is once again a busy and well-loved parish church, albeit just one third of the size of the original building. The church is now best approached from the car park by the river at the foot of the hill to the north of the town. The silhouette of the Abbey – complete with ruined arches – dominates the hillside. Once at the top, it continues to dominate the little town, which otherwise has a slightly sad air of neglect about it.

The structure is, as you might expect, hard to decipher from the outside, thanks to the variety of ruined walls and empty arches. Approached from the south side, you first come to the original Norman south porch, built around 1130. Unremarkable from a distance, close up you can begin to see the delicate carvings that make this one of the masterpieces of European Romanesque: the main entrance has eight arches of carving, depicting biblical scenes, enclosed in roundels formed by twisted branches.

And there is more inside the porch: two huge panels depict the apostles at Pentecost. There are six on each side, seated with flowing robes in stylised poses, angels overhead, sitting above blind arcading with dog-tooth decoration. Finally, the inner doorway has a tympanum with Christ seated and supported by two flying angels, with three arches of curving motifs around the door.

After all this drama, the nave can still hold its own: the nave has robust Norman arcades and a triforium, both with dogtooth decorative carving, with a Decorated Gothic clerestory and a spectacular vaulted roof, replete with huge carved bosses. The south arcade has an abbot’s oratory set in the triforium, and the other feature of interest is in the north aisle, the tomb of King Athelstan, (895-937) who united England, Wales and Scotland for the first time between 927 and 937. The tomb is late Gothic Perpendicular in style, though badly damaged.

The south aisle contains the chapel of its founder, St Aldhelm, as well as a bright Burne-Jones window depicting Faith, Courage and Devotion. Another window depicts England’s first aviator, an intrepid monk named Eilmer, who flew in a primitive sort of hang glider from one of the abbey towers in 1010. he glided an impressive 200m before landing, breaking both legs (but he lived to tell the tale).

Before you leave, be sure not to miss the small museum housed above the porch. Accessed by a steep and narrow spiral staircase, this contains illuminated manuscripts, prints and other items from the abbey’s historic past.

Abbey Row, Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 0AA

St Thomas, Salisbury

Most visitors to Salisbury never get further than the famous and spectacular Cathedral, which is, admittedly, the principal draw. But a few minutes’ walk away is the town church of St Thomas’s, which is well worth keeping half an hour free to see.

Located right in the centre of mediaeval Salisbury, the church was built to serve the workers building the new cathedral, and was dedicated to St Thomas a Becket in 1220. However, most of the building we see today results from the rebuilding in the mid 1400s in the Perpendicular Gothic style. The nave in particular benefits from a huge clerestory of perpendicular panels windows, flooding the church with light. The nave has a fine ‘Somerset’ roof, complete with dozens of carved angels.

The main event, however, is the spectacular ‘Doom’ wall-painting above the chancel arch, painted around 1475, depicting the Last Judgement. Hidden under whitewash during the Reformation, it was uncovered in the 19th century and vividly restored. It now ranks as the best preserved Doom Painting, to say nothing of being one of the most complete mediaeval wall paintings of any kind, in the UK.

The painting shows Christ sitting in judgement, with the Apostles at his feet, and the New Jerusalem behind. To the left, angels raise the good from their graves to heaven, while on the right devils herd the bad into the mouth of a wonderful blood-red monster. (The ‘bad’ includes several Bishops – I wonder what the contemporary Cathedral authorities made of this?) At the bottom sides of the painting, below the arch are images thought to be of St James (left) and St Osmund, the first Bishop of Salisbury, on the right.

Other items of interest include the Lady Chapel, built in 1470 by William Swayne, and containing a rich array of 15th and 16th century memorials, as well as some small fragments of wall painting depicting the Annunciation, Visitation and Nativity. The chancel also dates from around this period, but is rather plainer in style. The south wall has a fine carved wooden memorial in memory of Henry Beckham, who died, aged 83, in 1671. He apparently carved it himself – the panel below describes it as ‘His own Worke’.

The church is rich in other memorials, including diamond-shaped funeral hatchments and the Coat of Arms of Queen Elizabeth I. The tower is adorned by an attractive Tudor Quarter Clock which can be seen through an alley around the corner. There are daily services during the week and of course on Sundays, with an inclusive but traditional liturgy, which visitors are very welcome to join.

St Thomas's Square, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP1 1BA

St Laurence, Bradford-on-Avon

Bradford-on-Avon is a lovely historic town close to Bath, with a handsome mediaeval bridge, an impressive 14th Century tithe barn and a lovely parish church of Norman foundation.

But the most famous building in Bradford-on-Avon is undoubtedly the diminutive church of St Lawrence which, by an accident of history, is arguably Britain's most perfectly preserved Saxon church. A church was founded on the site in AD 705 by St Aldhelm, although most archaeologists agree that the present building dates from the reign of King Aethelred II (978-1016).

Its history is rather obscure, but appears quite early on to have been converted into secular use, with other buildings growing up around it, and extra floors inserted into its nave and chancel. These were removed when it was rediscovered and restored in 1856, although the walls still show evidence of them. There are no remaining additions from later periods, so the building we now see is purely Saxon.

The church is tiny - the nave is just 25ft long and the chancel is 13ft long, although it feels larger as it considerably taller than it is wide. It has lost its south porticus, but the north porticus is still intact. Decoration is restrained: the exterior has Romanesque blind arcading, and the interior has simple mouldings around the narrow door arches, but the most interesting carvings are those of two bearded flying angels on the east wall of the nave. These were found nearby and placed here in 1855. They were probably originally part of a much larger sulptural scheme.

There are only a few, small windows, giving a dusky light. Although the interior is bare of furnishings, this is nevertheless an ancient and atmospheric space. It is still used for worship by the congregation of the adjacent Holy Trinity.

Church of St Laurence, Church Street, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury's Cathedral is hardly a well-kept secret, but both the building and setting are stunning all the same. It celebrated the 750th anniversary of its completion in 2008, as befits the finest 13th century Cathedral in the UK. The list of superlatives for Salisbury is truly impressive: At 404ft (123m) it has Britain's tallest spire, Europe's oldest working clock (1386), the best preserved copy of Magna Carta (1215), the largest Cathedral Close, the largest Cloisters...

Unusually built 'all in one go' between 1220 and 1258, it is a classic of the Early English Gothic style. And the setting - famously painted by Constable - is incomparable (and thankfully now preserved from intrusive development). But as well as the grandeur of the building, it also has a very fine collection of monuments, to both secular and ecclesiastical worthies, as well as some original mediaeval glass.

Like all Cathedrals, it's more than just a building, and one should not forget the music and worship. I would strongly recommend you try to attend a service or concert: the acoustics are superb, the organ is recognised as one of England's finest, as is its 750-year old Choir School. Whether you are religious or not, you'd be hard pressed not to be moved by the haunting impact of its music.

Truly magnificent.