St. Mary The Virgin Church Houghton With Wyton

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Interments:
26view records
Address:
Mill Street, Houghton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE28 2AZ, UK
Political territory:
Houghton
Additional information

The Church of ST. MARY THE VIRGIN  consists of chancel (33¼ ft. by 16¼ ft.), nave (48¼ ft. by 17¼ ft.), north aisle (6¼ ft. wide), west tower (10½ ft. by 10½ ft.) and south porch. The walls are of pebble rubble with stone dressings and the roofs of tile and lead, but the modern north wall of the aisle is of brick. Of the church mentioned in the Domesday Survey (1086) nothing remains, the earliest part of the present building being the chancel built in the mid 13th century. About a hundred years later the nave was rebuilt and possibly lengthened, and the north aisle added. The west tower and spire was built c. 1380, and the porch in 1664. The chancel was restored in 1851, and the whole church in 1870–1, the north wall of the aisle being modern.

The mid 13th-century chancel has a three-light east window having 14th-century jambs and arch, but 15th-century tracery much restored. In the north wall is an early 14th-century two-light window and a doorway of similar date. The south wall has a 15th-century two-light, a late 13th-century lancet, a late 14th-century two-light, and an original double piscina with moulded arches, jambs, shafts and centre shaft with moulded capitals and bases, and wooden shelves. The late 13th-century chancel arch has been badly reset and its lower order has been rebated for a boarded tympanum. The screen now under it was put up in 1902.

The nave has a north arcade of four bays of 14th-century date and a clearstory of four 16th-century quatrefoil windows. In the south wall are two 15th-century three-light windows and a late 14th-century doorway; at the eastern end is a tall arched recess, perhaps to give more room for an altar; in the wall at the back, a wooden lintel seems to indicate an opening now built up. The east and west walls of the north aisle are of the late 14th century, the former with a blocked square-headed window, and against the latter a 13th-century stone seat with shaped ends has been refixed. The north wall is of modern brickwork and has three two-light windows.

The late 14th-century west tower has an arch of two orders, the lower resting on engaged shafts with moulded capitals and bases; on the north respond, near the floor, is the scratched figure of a chalice surmounted by a cross. A plain west doorway has a two-light window above it, and each wall of the belfry has a two-light window; at the top of the belfry windows the tower becomes octagonal and is surmounted by a stone spire rising from behind an embattled parapet. The shafts of four pinnacles remain; the tops are said to have been blown off by the storm of 1741. The stair-turret is at the southeast angle, projecting into the nave, and at the north-east angle a splayed projection arranged to balance the stair-turret envelops the respond of the north arcade.

The south porch, largely rebuilt, has a plain outer archway dated 1664.

The font is modern, octagonal with quatrefoil panels.

There are five bells, inscribed: (i) Uirg bego egahc [possibly for Virgo Bega hec]; (ii) Man taketh paine bvt God giveth gnyne [for gain] 1626; (iii) Hee that will be meri let him be meri in the Lord, 1626; (iv) Non clamor sed amor cantat in avre Dei, 1626; (v) Cvm cano bvsta mori cvm pulpita vivere disc [for disce] 1626. The first by Newcomb, the others by Haulsey. In 1552 there were 3 bells.  Rehung in 1878.

There are memorial windows in the chancel to Gilbert Ansley, d. 1860; Gilbert John Ansley, d. 1875; and a brass plate to Mary Anne Maclean (Martelli), widow of Gilbert Ansley, d. 1896. On the south wall of the nave, outside, is a tablet to John Prescot, d. 1790.

The registers are: (i) baptisms, marriages and burials, 21 April 1633 to 19 March 1725; (ii) ditto, 4 April 1725 to 1 March 1750–1 (this book contains the register of Wyton also); (iii) baptisms and burials, 15 January 1790 to 27 December 1812. There are loose sheets containing entries for 1783– 1786.

The church plate consists of: a silver cup, late 16th century, but unmarked; a silver standing paten, hall-marked for 1853–4.

 

http://www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk/Community%20and%20People/Neighbourhood-village/Towns%20and%20Villages/Pages/Houghton%20and%20Wyton.aspx

 

Sources: wikimapia.org

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