The church building is currently closed, due to safety reasons. Our Sunday services have moved to the Cabin, behind the church building. We need to fundraise to pay for the cost of repairs to the building. For more information on giving to St Mary’s Church, please see our “Giving” page.

Update on Repair Work – March 2024

We are excited to let you know that our building repair project is getting underway in the middle of this month! Early in February, our contractor, Alastaire, from AJ Restoration came to conduct a thorough plaster survey of the entire ceiling and walls. On the first day he met with Bat expert, Chris Vine, who advised us regarding the bat population. We also met with the Diocese of Ely Advisors Graham Pledger (retired Surveyor) and David Grech (retired Architect). We are very grateful to them for their help and advice, and they will be continuing to help us as the project proceeds. We have also been working closely with local Scaffolders, Marlow Scaffolding, and we are grateful for their help and advice.

The plaster survey revealed both good and bad news. The good news is that the Chancel ceiling (the east end of the church) is in good condition and needs only limited repair work. We will also need to re-bed the misaligned mould stone which sits above our beautiful stained glassed window in this part of the Church. However, a significant number of ceiling panels will need repair throughout the rest of the Church.

We are delighted that now that we have received list B consent for these works Alastaire will be returning to commence the repair to the ceiling from mid March. He will also repair other internal wall cracks as well as undertake external works to the east end of the Church and to the porch. We will be scaffolding outside to the east end of the Church later on this Spring, in order to carry out these repairs safely. This will affect our Garden of Remembrance on the north side of the Church. We have already written to all families whose loved ones are laid to rest there. Please be reassured that we will be treating this area carefully and respectfully. We anticipate the project will take at least two months, and we will keep you informed as to our progress. We can’t wait to re-open in the early Summer!

We are very grateful to the Cambridge Historic Churches Trust for their generous grant of £3,000; the Jack Patson Trust for their generous grant of £2,000; and to all who have so generously donated to our fundraising campaign. Thank you!


On 13th August 2017, the Rev’d Dr Lynne Broughton gave a talk to members of the Cambridgeshire Historic Churches Trust on the history of the church, describing many interesting aspects of the building, including the murals. You can watch a video of the talk, including pictures of the features described, on YouTube.


The Church itself is built largely of field stones. Historians believe, using evidence from the shape, design and setting of the last window on the south side of the chancel, that there was an earlier church on the site. The vestry of St. Mary’s is modern, but the rest of the church dates from the early fourteenth century. The tower, nave and chancel were completed in the late fourteenth century, the south porch in the late fifteenth, and the unusual queen-post roofs are fifteenth century (queen-posts are vertical wooden posts on either side of the centre). During this period, the chancel arch was rebuilt to make it larger, and a stone stairway was constructed in the north east corner of the nave. The original rood screen, the carved screen which separates the nave and the choir, seems to have been removed at the time of the Reformation and replaced by another of Jacobean design in the early seventeenth century.

At one time a distinctive and richly-coloured medieval mural painting covered the whole south wall of the nave of the church. It was probably painted between 1460 and 1480. It was uncovered in 1858 during restoration work, examined and covered again until the restoration of 1986, when part of it was once more uncovered and restored, and is still visible. For more details see here.

The Diocesan records state that by 1783 the church was badly in need of repair and that the spire was out of line. Records in 1836 claim that the roof had so many holes that it gave good ventilation to the church and also admitted numbers of sparrows to the services. Restoration was begun in 1901 financed by members of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Parish registers date from 1569 and are virtually complete.

There were three bells and a sanctus bell in the tower in 1552. New bells are said to have been cast in 1797. All but one was sold and the remaining one was recast and rehung in the refurbished belfry around 2000. The font is on a modern base but it is believed to date from the thirteenth century although it has been reworked. The church has a cup and a communion plate, or paten, from 1569. On the chancel arch there is some scratching in Old English ‘MARMADUKE MESSYNDEN OFF HELYNGE YN THE CONTY OF LYNCOLNE’ that is ‘Marmaduke Messynden from Helynge in the County of Lincoln.’

Graffiti has been popular for much longer than we thought, ‘Helynge’ is probably the town of Hemmingby where the visitor came from. Rather more religious inscriptions are to be found on the western side of the south door where six lines in Latin are partly obliterated. The words ‘A SUBITA PESTE’ and ‘DIE DICTO’ can still be distinguished. This means ‘from sudden plague’ and ‘on the day spoken of’, which may be a reference to either the day of Judgement or to the Resurrection. On the second window of the south wall of the nave there is a medieval sundial. In the Churchyard, about fifteen feet south of the southern entrance, there is a tomb chest whose sides are now below ground level. It is said to contain the body of William Middleton who was rector until 1613. There are a number of eighteenth century headstones and footstones.

The church is a Grade II* listed building.