St Mary, Felmersham
St Mary, Felmersham
St Mary’s is a Grade I cruciform parish church at Church End, Felmersham, Bedfordshire, overlooking the River Great Ouse, in the Diocese of St Albans. It serves Felmersham and Radwell.
- Location
- Felmersham, Bedfordshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Bedfordshire
- City / town
- Felmersham
- Address
- Church End, Felmersham, Bedfordshire, MK43 7JP
- Postcode
- MK43 7JP
- Built
- c.1220–40; 15th-century tower and clerestory
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- St Albans
- Parish
- Felmersham
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Early English Gothic
- Materials
- Limestone rubble walling and ashlar dressings
- Grid reference
- SP 991 578
- Opening hours
- Sorry, there are no regular opening times for this church.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby
Overview
Historic England lists a predominantly thirteenth-century church with some fifteenth-century alteration and nineteenth-century restoration, in limestone rubble with ashlar dressings. The plan is chancel, central tower, transepts and aisled nave with south porch. Wikipedia and the parish tradition date the fabric to about 1220–40 as a dependent church of Lenton Priory, Nottinghamshire. The west front is the showpiece: a deeply moulded doorway flanked by blank arches under a seven-bay wall arcade. The three-bay chancel keeps early-thirteenth-century lancets; the crossing arches are of three orders. A four-bay thirteenth-century nave arcade supports a fifteenth-century clerestory.
The upper stage of the three-stage tower, embattled parapet and south-east turret were added in the fifteenth century, together with a three-bay rood screen with tracery and a coved half-vault. The church is regarded as a well-preserved Early English ensemble; later work includes 1853 lancets in place of larger Gothic windows and a stone pulpit of 1895.