The church at Staindrop, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, was much mutilated by restorations in 1849, but its sepulchral monuments to members of the Neville family are unrivalled. Parts of the walls of the nave are of pre-Reformation date, and two of the original windows still remain. The north and south aisles were added to the original structure in the twelfth century, when the nave walls were pierced by three arches on each side, supported on cylindrical pillars, with capitals carved in different foliage designs. During the following century the plan of the church was altered, and an additional bay added to the west end of the nave, north and south transepts thrown out, and the tower erected. The tower was of three stages, probably crowned by a wooden spire, taken down in 1408, when a fourth stage was added. Being built on the original corbel-tables, and overhanging the substructure, it gives the whole a very heavy appearance. About the same time the original high-pitched roofs were lowered to the almost flat roofs which now exist, and the clerestory of the nave built. Before the date of the latter alterations extensive changes had been made in the church during the fourteenth century, when Ralph, Lord Neville, under licence of the Prior and convent of Durham, endowed three chantries. The original south aisle and transept were removed, and the present south aisle, which is much wider than the nave, erected. At the south-east angle of the aisle a small porch or vestry projects, which was intended for the use of the priests officiating in the chantries. Shortly after these alterations, the symmetry of the church being destroyed, a new north aisle and transept, of similar dimensions, but much inferior work, were erected. The ancient vestry opening from the chancel, with _domus inclusa_ above, is very interesting. Staindrop is the only church in the county in which the pre-Reformation chancel screen remains, but the rood-loft which surmounted it has been destroyed. The font is octagonal, and of Teesdale marble, decorated with armorial bearings, and may date from the latter part of the fourteenth century. The first of the effigies before referred to is that of a lady, and lies in a recess in the south aisle. It is ascribed to Isabel de Neville, wife of Robert FitzMeldred, Lord of Raby. "The costume is an excellent example of the dress of a gentlewoman of Western Europe in the second half of the thirteenth century and beginning of the fourteenth." Sepulchral effigies of females of this early date are extremely rare. The general resemblance of this effigy to that of Aveline, Countess of Lancaster, in Westminster Abbey, who died in 1269, is very striking.