Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a medieval parish church located on Church Lane in Somersham. It features a nave, chancel, west tower, and south porch. The walls are made of rendered rubble, partly limewashed, with limestone dressings, while the tower is constructed from unplastered flint, septaria, and limestone rubble. The roofs are covered with plain tiles.

The nave includes elements from around 1300, such as a Y-traceried window, two lancet windows, and north and south doorways, all adorned with scroll hood-moulds. The chancel was remodeled in the mid-14th century, showcasing a canted and ceiled roof with a moulded tie-beam and cornice, a prominent net-traceried east window, and two smaller windows on the south wall. The mid-14th century timber-framed porch features a heavy two-centred doorway, drop- and mouchette-traceried side windows, and a coupled-rafter roof.

The tower, also from the mid-14th century, includes a two-light west window, traceried belfry openings on the east and west sides, and lionhead gargoyles. The south door, dating from the 14th or 15th century, retains its original scrap-hinges and sanctuary ring. Uniquely, the north wall has a two-centred arched roodloft doorway made of wood. A sanctus bell bracket remains attached to a beam in the chancel.

The nave was reroofed in the 15th century, featuring a canted and ceiled design with moulded arch-braced tie-beams and cornice. There is a small early 16th-century priest's door in the north wall, opposite a cusped piscina. The altar reredos, dated 1601, has enriched panelling, and the sanctuary contains 18th-century panels displaying the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, flanked by fine paintings of Moses and Aaron, believed to have been given to the church in 1750. The late 17th-century altar rails feature turned balusters. A fragment of a 13th or 14th-century wall painting is visible on the south wall of the nave. The outer face of the north nave doorway is blocked by a slab inscribed with a date of 1786, while another inscription on the south external wall dates to 1717/18.