Church Of St Mary The Great

The Church of St Mary the Great

The Church of St Mary the Great is a very large and impressive church that forms an important landmark in the centre of Cambridge, adjacent to the marketplace. The chancel dates from the early 14th century. The nave and aisles were begun in 1478 but not completed until around 1520. The west tower was begun in 1491 but not completed until 1606. Aisle galleries were added in 1735. The church was restored by James Essex in 1766, and again in 1850-1 by Gilbert Scott, with further work by Anthony Salvin in 1857. The south porch was rebuilt in 1888. Some 20th-century restoration has also been carried out.

Materials and Construction

The church is built of rubble with some ashlar, and has dressings of oolitic limestone. The interior is faced largely in clunch. Some of the stone comes from the ruins of Ramsey and Thorney abbeys. The roofs are lead-covered.

Plan

The plan comprises a chancel, nave, west tower, north and south aisles extending alongside the tower and the western part of the chancel, and a south porch.

Exterior

The exterior is wholly Perpendicular in appearance and is embattled throughout with low-pitched roofs. The windows are late Perpendicular in style and have vertical tracery, with transoms in the aisle windows and chancel east window. The tall four-stage west tower has a very large west window and polygonal corner turrets. It dates from around 1490-1550 up to the top of the west window, with the upper part added in 1593-1608. The west door is 19th century and replaces a late 16th-century Elizabethan door. The nave is clerestoried, with unusually tall clerestory windows. The aisles extend across the western bay of the chancel to form chapels, and there is a polygonal rood stair turret on the south side at the junction of aisle and chapel. The gabled south porch was added in 1888 to replace a porch demolished in 1783. The chancel was refaced externally in 1857 by Salvin.

Interior

The interior is lofty and particularly notable for the rich decoration on the arcades and the survival of the 18th-century aisle galleries. The chancel east window is 14th century internally, and there is also evidence for former 14th-century north and south doors and windows. There is an early 14th-century tomb recess in the chancel, and 14th-century ogee-headed statue niches flanking the east window. The arches to the chancel chapels are late 15th century. The tall, slender nave arcades, the north and south tower arches, and the chancel arch have richly panelled spandrels with blind tracery and a moulded frieze of quatrefoils. The internal string courses in the aisles and chapels are also decorated with paterae, flowers, masks and heraldic devices. The nave roof stands alternately on slender shafts that descend to the piers and corbels between the clerestory windows. The tower arch rises through two storeys to the head of the clerestory windows; it is partially closed by the organ gallery. The lower part, with a Perpendicular-style doorway in artificial stone, is probably part of the former west gallery of 1819. The aisle galleries were installed in 1735. Screens closing the entrance to the chancels from the aisles were made up in the 19th century from parts of the 18th-century pulpit.

There are very fine late medieval roofs in the nave, aisles and chapels with carved bosses and openwork tracery in the spandrels of the braces; the bosses in the nave are very fine. There is a further 18th-century roof designed by James Essex above the medieval nave roof. The north and south aisle doors are early 16th century; those in the chapels are late 16th century, as is that to the rood stair. The north tower screen wall door is 17th century; that on the south is 15th century.

Principal Fixtures

The chancel retains remains of a 14th-century double piscina and sedilia, and two 14th-century statue niches flanking the east window. There is a late 15th-century piscina in the south aisle. The font is an excellent and very unusual example of 1632, polygonal in form, with strapwork cartouches on the bowl and Renaissance foliage carving on the stem. The cover is also 17th century. A late medieval chest, much restored in the 19th century, survives. Some 16th- or 17th-century poppyheads survive on the 17th-century benches at the back of the galleries. The other gallery seating is 18th century. There are good nave benches of 1863 with finely carved poppyheads, and 19th-century choir stalls, also with poppyheads. The organ of 1698, rebuilt in 1870, is housed in a fine late 17th-century case. The very good 19th-century pulpit of 1872 has openwork tracery and is mounted on rails in the floor, allowing it to slide to the centre of the church when needed. There is a wooden eagle lectern of 1867. Some late 19th- and early 20th-century glass survives. The east window of 1872 is by William Chance. The clerestory windows, installed 1902-4, use portraits of noted Victorian clergymen for the faces of the apostles. A clock face of 1679 is visible on the tower.

There are many monuments, mostly wall and floor tablets. Notable monuments include an early 14th-century tomb recess in the chancel, probably for John of Cambridge, died 1335, and a memorial to William Butler, died 1617/8, comprising an alabaster wall tablet with a half-figure flanked by putti. There are also many good 18th-century wall tablets and a number of palimpsest ledger slabs made from former brass indents. A small brass plaque marks the former burial place of Martin Bucer, died 1551. There is a good set of 18th- and early 19th-century bequest boards under the west tower and in the galleries.

Subsidiary Features

Good cast iron churchyard railings with floral finials including lilies surround the site. The datum point for road mileage from Cambridge, established in 1732, is cut into the southwest tower buttress.

History

There may have been a church on this site before the Conquest, and it was certainly in existence by the late 12th or early 13th century, when it was known as St Mary-by-the-market. It was used by scholars of the nascent university from their arrival in 1209. There was a fire in 1290, and the chancel was rebuilt in the early 14th century and consecrated in 1351. The rest of the church was entirely rebuilt from the late 15th century. The work began in 1478 but carried on into the early 16th century. The nave roof was being framed in 1506, the altar in the Lady chapel was set up in 1518, and the nave seats were made in 1519. Craftsmen associated with the work include the masons William Burdon, John Bell and William Rotherham, and the carpenter William Buxton. The west tower was begun in 1491, but by 1550 it had only reached the height of the west window. The bell chamber was complete by 1596, and the top of the tower was finished in 1608. The medieval pulpit was replaced by a new one (now in Orton Waterville church) in 1618. A projected spire was never built. The galleries in the aisles were added in 1735, and a chancel gallery, subsequently removed, was installed in 1754. A three-decker pulpit and box pews were also installed in the mid-18th century. James Essex carried out restorations to the nave roof and altered some of the windows in 1766. A west gallery, also later removed, was installed in 1837 to designs by Edward Blore. Blore also intended to add a spire to the tower, but this was never carried out. The Elizabethan west door of 1576 was replaced by a Gothic-style door in 1850-1 by Gilbert Scott, and the old vestry was demolished and the chancel re-clad in 1857 by Anthony Salvin. The south porch was rebuilt along its original lines in 1888, and the tower was restored in 1892. There was also some refurnishing and restoration in the 20th century, including reordering in the chancel in 1958.