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Stoke Dry Stoke Dry is just over two miles south-west of Uppingham. Quite how the village acquired its unusual name is uncertain. Two Old English words sound like 'stoke'. One denotes a religious site and the other denotes woodland cleared for arable farming. As a result Stoke is a fairly common place-name. The earliest surviving record of the village being called 'Dry Stoke' is from 1205. This becomes 'Stoke Dry' by 1281, although 'Dry Stoke' was still used as well until 1428. There was a now-forgotten Stoke in nearby Caldecott parish which would have caused confusion. But why the 'Dry' affix was chosen is unclear. Maybe because it was just above the then-marshy Eye Brook valley, or because local wells and springs were unreliable. Stoke Dry was in Wrangdike Hundred. The Leicestershire Forest was released from Forest Law by Henry III in 1235 and most of the Rutland portion by Edward I in 1299. The remaining Forest was a strip of land along the Rutland border from Braunston in Rutland in the north to Stoke Dry in the south. source: lahs.org.uk/blog/ghost-woods-of-leighfield-forest According to oral history collected in the early 1970s the pinfold was on the opposite side of the road to the Manor lawn (with the village spring below the lawn).   The reservoir in the Eye Brook valley was constructed in 1935 to supply Corby steelworks. It now attracts water fowl and they, in turn, attract ornithologists. The boundary between Rutland and Leicestershire follows the course of the now-drowned Eye Brook.   One curiosity is that RAF 617 Squadron flying out of RAF Scampton used Eyebrook Reservoir to practice dropping Sir Barnes Wallis's bouncing bombs before Operation Chastise (a.k.a. the 'Dam Busters raid') in May 1943. St Andrew's church St Andrew's church has much of interest. The chantry chapel (now used as the vestry) is probably the oldest part of the church, although much transformed over the centuries. There is a 'squint' or hagioscope, enabling a priest in the side chapel to see the main altar and, during the celebration of the eucharist at both altars, synchronise the elevation of the host. There is a Romanesque string course in the chancel with tendrils, animals and humans.   The chancel arch with Romanesque columns (marked with red outlines). The chancel arch columns and the surviving capital are decorated with deeply-carved figures. A similar style of decoration can also be seen at Essendine. They are among the most interesting carvings of this period in the region. Look out for a mermaid, a dragon and the earliest depictions of a bell-ringer. They are tentatively to about 1120.   The mermaid on one of the Romanesque columns in Stoke Dry church.   A foliage sprouting quadruped is also depicted. Along with two foliage-sprouting human faces at Tickencote they are among the earliest such depictions in the country. All three have design details which emulate foliage-sprouting creatures in Indian art. See the 'The Indian-inspired 'Islamesque' in Rutland'.   The earliest-known depiction of a bell-ringer in England. From a rubbing taken by David Stocker and Paul Everson. The scene on the column shown in the illustration above is associated with a funeral. The bell-ringer is summoning St Michael to act as the soul's psychopomp. St Michael is shown to the left (holding what is probably intended to be a copy of the Gospels) fending off a 'hell hound' in the shape of a human-headed quadruped, with the soul of the deceased (represented by a bird) rising to Heaven. This eschatology was introduced in the eleventh century, along with the bier leaving the church via a west door in the tower. Which suggests these two columns were originally on the outside of a west doorway. For further details of eleventh century eschatology read David Stocker and Paul Everson Summoning St Michael: Early Romanesque Towers in Lincolnshire (Oxbow 2006). The 'soul bird' looks somewhat like a goose. This is consistent with circumpolar beliefs that migrating geese take the souls of the recently-deceased northwards each autumn to a place 'north beyond the north wind' then return with the souls of the about to be born in the early spring. British folklore substituted storks for geese but that is a result of German lore (where storks are native) influencing British lore. Ian Brown wonders if the bird might be a caladrius. 'The caladrius was a white bird believed to visit the sickbeds of the possibly moribund. If the caladrius looked into the face of the patient, they would recover. If, however, the bird faced the other way, the patient would not survive.' (email 9/7/2026) Wikipedia informs me: 'The caladrius is a mythical snow-white bird described in medieval bestiaries. According to legend, it lives in the homes of kings, determines if an ill person will live or die by gazing at them, and heals by absorbing the sickness into itself before taking it away to be burned up by the sun' and 'Because of its purity and ability to absorb suffering and ascend to the sun, the bird was historically used as a metaphor for Jesus Christ taking away the sins of mankind.' However I've not been able to ascertain what understanding a Norman stonemason may have had about the caladrius. If anyone reading this has knowledge of twelfth century beliefs and practices concerning the caladrius then please email me: bobtrubs@indigogroup.co.uk The rather slim base to the tower is thirteenth century. It was probably designed to support a bellcote. However the belfry was added in the seventeenth century. It supports a single bell dated 1761. The south aisle is also thirteenth century. The east window of the south chapel dates from about 1300 and has unusual decoration; the east window of the chancel is the same age. The north aisle is fourteenth century and the clerestory was added in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The north porch with the priest's chamber (or parvis or parvais) above is sixteenth century. The south porch dates from the following century. Until about 2000 a notice at the bottom of the stairs to the parvis asked parishioners not to spread the legend that the room was once used by a vicar to starve to death a local witch! What was a parvis built for? Beofre the Reformation it was a place for the priest to hear confessions. There is an aumbry in the east wall of the chancel and a piscina in the south wall of the chancel (obscured by the Digby monument), another piscina in the south wall of the chantry chapel, and a stoup in the west wall of the same chapel. The chancel screen is fifteenth century; it seems have been brought from elsewhere and adapted to fit. At the top there is ribbed coving which would have originally blended into a rood loft above. Note the north and south doors, made of chamfered oak planks, with the stone steps cut to an exact fit.   The wall painting of St Edmund being martyred by heathen Vikings. A wall painting of St Edmund being martyred by heathen Vikings (who are the spitting image of Native American warriors) is dated by several experts to the fourteenth century. As the chapel was refurbished in 1574 it seems more likely this painting is from that date, when woodcuts of native Americans had circulated widely leading to what were termed at the time 'Red Indians' epitomising 'heathens'. Elsewhere in the church are sixteenth century depictions of the emblems of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. If the painting of St Edmund is unquestionably much older than the discovery of the New World then it opens up some intriguing thoughts about what sort of people in the fourteenth century dressed up in feather head-dresses and were considered heathens. The nearby depiction of the Virgin and Child is more probably fourteenth century, and one of the best-surviving wall paintings of this date in the region. All the wall paintings were revealed during restoration work in 1898, when the roofs were extensively repaired while still retaining as many old timbers as possible.   The incised alabaster slab depicting Jaquetta Digby. There are four sepulchral monuments. The oldest is an incised alabaster slab which commemorates Jaquetta Digby, who died in 1496. The other effigies commemorate Everard Digby (died 1540), and Kenelme Digby (died 1590), with his wife, Ann (who died in 1602), and their eleven children (two of whom died as infants). Victoria County History page for Stoke Dry. 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