St Mary, Newmarket

St Mary’s is a Grade II* parish church on St Mary’s Square, Newmarket, Suffolk, in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, worshipping in the Anglo-Catholic tradition.

Overview

Historic England records a medieval church with major mid- and late-nineteenth-century alterations: nave, chancel, south and north aisles, west tower, north vestry and south porch, in flint rubble with limestone dressings. The fifteenth-century tower is little altered, with a fine oak-framed shingled spire and a tall tower arch. The south nave arcade and aisle are basically fourteenth-century, much restored; a fifteenth-century piscina survives in the south aisle, with a fifteenth-century south doorway and a porch heavily restored about 1876.

The chancel was completely rebuilt in 1856; a late thirteenth-century vaulted piscina was uncovered and reset. The north transept was replaced by a north aisle and organ chamber in 1868. The parish history states that a chapel of the Blessed Virgin stood here from the thirteenth century, when Newmarket still belonged to Exning, and that further reconstructions followed in 1857, 1867 and 1887. Furnishings are nineteenth-century; a south-aisle window is by Kempe and Tower, 1907. The parish notes Christopher Webb glass of 1930 in the west window.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1037636
• St Mary, Newmarket
• Parish history