In 1677 a bishop's decree was issued for a chapel dedicated to St Bartholomew at Stratton. This must be the chapel of 1676 shown in the survey drawings made in April 1807. On its site now, in the grounds south of Stratton Park, there is a cross that marks the site of an All Saints Church demolished in about 1885. The new dedication and change from chapel to church may have followed the proposal to separate the chapel of Stratton from the mother church at Micheldever in 1836-7 (ING Baring Archive, NP2.S59). A new All Saints was built in East Stratton village to a design by T.G. Jackson who, in his Recollections, wrote that 'In 1885 I had an interesting task in building a church for Lord Northbrook. Stratton Church, a little mean damp building of brick and stucco, stood in his park on a site which I afterwards marked by a stone cross. The new Church was outside the park on the hill and by the high road.'

Dance's design for an octagonal church, catalogued with these survey drawings of East Stratton chapel, are not inscribed for Stratton nor for Sir Francis Baring but there is on survey drawing [SM D1/6/2] a very faint pencil plan that closely corresponds to design drawing [SM D1/7/4]. Also the same survey drawing has a design elevation suggesting a conservative remodelling of the existing chapel that is close to another rough design on drawing [SM D1/7/5]. Again, A.T. Bolton (curator, Soane Museum 1917-45) labelled the folder for the five drawings Design for an octagonal church / Stratton Park.

In December 1806, Dance not only made a presentation set of drawings ([SM D1/7/1], [SM D1/7/2] and [SM D1/7/3]) for a replacement of East Stratton chapel but in the same month also made a design for Micheldever Church ([SM D2/12/15]and [SM D2/12/12]), a rectangular rebuilding that preceded his more radical octagonal design of April 1808. The octagonal design for Micheldever was built and certainly the chapel at East Stratton was also rebuilt but to what design is not known, though it seems most likely that it would have been a modest repair and refurbishment with new windows and buttresses. Baring probably decided that since his wife's monument was in Micheldever parish church, it should have the more expensive, and octagonal, treatment.

LITERATURE. A.B. Milner, History of Micheldever, Paris, 1924; B.H. Jackson, Recollections of Thomas Graham Jackson 1835-1924, Oxford, 1950, pp.191-2; Kalman pp.148-9.

OTHER SOURCES. ING Baring Archive, London