St Wendreda, March
St Wendreda, March
St Wendreda’s is a Grade I parish church on Church Street, March, Cambridgeshire, in the Diocese of Ely, and the only church in the United Kingdom dedicated to the seventh-century saint Wendreda.
- Location
- March, Cambridgeshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Cambridgeshire
- City / town
- March
- Address
- Wimblington Road, March, Cambridgeshire, PE15 9QW
- Postcode
- PE15 9QW
- Built
- Mid 14th century to c.1528; chancel rebuilt 1874
- Architect
- W Smith (1874 chancel)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Wendreda
- Diocese
- Ely
- Parish
- March
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Perpendicular
- Materials
- Rubble stone with Barnack limestone dressings; flint and brick to the clerestory; leaded nave roof and tiled chancel
- Opening hours
- Open 9am to 4pm daily, 7 days a week and by arrangement with Churchwardens. There is level access (no steps) through the south entrance and wheelchair/walker's are available by arrangement. Please be aware that there are steps down through the north entrance. There are toilets for use in the Community Hall if it is open or their is a local pub a short distance away with toilet access.
- Access
- Accessible toilets nearby. Level access throughout. Level access to the main areas
- Website
- http://www.stwendreda.co.uk/
Overview
The listing describes a parish church mainly of the mid fourteenth century, about 1400, the late fifteenth century and about 1528, restored in 1874. Fabric is rubble stone with Barnack limestone dressings, flint and brick to the late fifteenth-century clerestory, a leaded nave roof and tiles to the rebuilt chancel. The plan is a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, south porch and chancel. The four-stage west tower and spire of 1350–1400 is embattled; the ground stage spans a right of way. The south porch is dated 1528 on a roof beam. The chancel was rebuilt in 1874 by W. Smith in a fourteenth-century style with reticulated tracery.
The church is widely known for its late medieval double-hammerbeam angel roof. Diocesan and local accounts record 118 carved oak figures, including angels whose wings recall hen and marsh harriers; John Betjeman wrote that the roof was worth cycling forty miles in a head wind to see.