Sir Christopher Wren did it all. 51 City Churches after the Great Fire of London. St Paul’s Cathedral. Hampton Court, Greenwich Hospital, Royal Hospital Chelsea… But he never built an English country church. Or did he? This weekend, I went to an enchanting service at St Mary’s, Ingestre, Staffordshire, to celebrate its 350th anniversary.

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There is only one document connecting Wren to the church – his design for ‘Mr Chetwynd’s tower’. The Chetwynds built the neighbouring pile, Ingestre Hall. Their descendant, Aaron Chetwynd, lives in the neighbouring stables and kindly asked me to give a talk on Wren at the Ingestre Hall orangery after the church service.

Walk inside St Mary’s and it’s spine-tinglingly moving. It’s just like one of Wren’s City churches, with an exceptional, Grinling Gibbons-like pulpit and screen and alarmingly lifelike cherubs – with several of them so idiosyncratic that they must have been based on real people.

The carving of the plaster ceiling is........

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