CHURCHES.
From the 12th century until after
1550 Burwell had two churches in use, standing
close together near the south end of the village
street. St. Andrew's on the east was appropriated by 1280. St. Mary's to the south-west
remained a rectory until its appropriation, possibly the last in the country, in 1544, and was
thereafter a vicarage.
In the mid 12th century the advowson of St.
Andrew's church belonged to Robert son of
Humphrey. Probably 1170 × 1173 he gave it by
exchange to Stoke by Clare priory (Suff.), a cell
of Bec (Eure), (fn. 51) to which successive bishops of
Norwich confirmed it until c. 1200, assigning to
the priory a pension of £3 from the rector whom
it presented. (fn. 52) Probably after 1200 the church
passed to the hospital at Fordham, whose prior
Robert agreed, 1205 × 1227, to pay Stoke priory
that pension of £2-3, (fn. 53) which remained due to
it until after 1300. (fn. 54) In 1246 Herbert le
Fraunceys confirmed to Fordham, by 1227
a Gilbertine priory, the advowson of St.
Andrew's, as part of his wife Amice's inheritance. (fn. 55) Possibly after 1254 and certainly before
1279 Fordham priory had appropriated the
church, taxed at 12 marks in 1254 and £12 in
1291, with its 36 a. of glebe. (fn. 56) No vicarage was
ordained (fn. 57) and St. Andrew's may for a time have
been served by canons from Fordham. By the
16th century, however, it had a priest to celebrate mass for its parishioners. About 1535 the
priory's rectory lessee was to house him in a
chamber at the farmstead, and allow him 53s.
4d. yearly with two cartloads, of barley and of
hay. (fn. 58) The church remained in regular use, some
villagers still describing themselves as its parishioners into the 1530s, (fn. 59) until the mid 16th
century, when 2 a. and rents, partly arising from
that parish, sold by the Crown in 1548 and 1571,
had been let to maintain lights in it, sometimes
before its rood. (fn. 60) In 1552 it was well equipped
for services, having two silver gilt chalices with
patens and six sets of vestments. (fn. 61) A former
monk of Ramsey was serving St. Andrew's c.
1555, (fn. 62) but no minister was recorded in 1560. (fn. 63)
A Crown lease of the dissolved priory's
Burwell land in 1562 still required payment of
the priest's pension, (fn. 64) apparently rendered in
1603 to the vicar of St. Mary's. (fn. 65) In 1575 a villager, who hoped for burial in St. Andrew's
churchyard, unfenced and grazed by cattle by
1582, was doubtful whether that church would
be maintained. (fn. 66) In 1611 it was in decay through
the lay rector's neglect. (fn. 67) Lee Cotton's offer, in
his will of 1613, to bequeathe £100 to endow a
godly man to read service in it weekly, preach
monthly, and keep a school in it, provided the
parishioners should within three years repair it
so as to be fit for worship, (fn. 68) was apparently not
taken up. By the 1720s, when demolition was
proposed, the church was ruinous, (fn. 69) its parish
being effectively combined with St. Mary's; one
pair of churchwardens apparently represented
both in 1694. (fn. 70) The parishes had perhaps been
previously divided according to manorial tenure:
in 1569 the lord of Tiptofts, the second largest
manor, thought that he had St. Andrew's
advowson, (fn. 71) while Lee Cotton considered
Tiptofts tenants peculiarly responsible for its
fabric. (fn. 72) After the purchase of St. Andrew's
impropriate rectory in 1646 for Cambridge
university, already holding St. Mary's, all St.
Andrew's rights to tithe besides its rectorial
glebe, reckoned at c. 41 a. of arable, were combined with St. Mary's. The 6½ a. of closes on
which a large barn survived in 1710, still called
in 1850 the Priory closes, (fn. 73) presumably represented the site of St. Andrew's rectory homestead. The two rectories, although formally
distinguished until the 1760s as St. Mary's parsonage and St. Andrew's priory or little parson
age, were regularly leased beneficially, (fn. 74) and also
sublet, together. (fn. 75)
St. Mary's was presumably the church whose
advowson Aelfgar had given by the 990s with
his Burwell estate to Ramsey abbey, (fn. 76) which
retained it until its dissolution in 1540. About
1115 Everard, priest of Burwell, gave to the
abbey his church and its lands with eight titheable fields assigned to him, apparently from the
abbot's demesne (aula). (fn. 77) The abbey may
initially have appointed vicars: it complained,
1160 × 1180, that a former vicar, who had quitted the church twenty years before, was seeking
to reclaim it from the abbey and its clerk who
then held it. (fn. 78) About 1185 Ramsey accepted a
judgement that it should allow to that clerk, as
farmer or rector, the tithes of its Burwell
demesne in return for a pension, usually of £2,
still rendered to it by the rector in 1540. (fn. 79) St.
Mary's rectory, to which Ramsey regularly presented until the 1530s, (fn. 80) was endowed by the
1220s with a free yardland, although in 1279 it
supposedly had only 18 a. of glebe. (fn. 81) It was
wealthier than St. Andrew's, being taxed in 1254
at 40, and in 1291 at 80 marks. In 1535 it was
assessed at 76 marks. It had presumably the
larger share of the tithes, said in 1340 to produce
two thirds of its total benefice income. (fn. 82)
In 1544 Sir Edward North, just before relinquishing Ramseys manor, agreed for £600 to
grant the advowson of St. Mary's to Cambridge
university and arranged its appropriation,
effected at once, to the university. The patronage of the vicarage then established was assigned
to North's heirs, who were to present one of two
Cambridge students named by the university,
unconditionally within two weeks of notification. (fn. 83) Accordingly Sir Edward's descendants,
the lords North of Kirtling, and after 1734 their
heirs male, then earls of Guilford, continued to
present on the university's nomination until at
least the 1850s. (fn. 84) From 1884, however, the heir
general, the then Lord North, being a convert
to Roman Catholicism, the university claimed
to present on its own authority. (fn. 85) By the mid
19th century its candidates were selected by
voting in Congregation. (fn. 86) That branch of the
lords North expired in the male line in 1941; by
1970 their rights in the patronage were vested
in Mrs. D. A. Bowlby, a sister of the last lord. (fn. 87)
The appropriation required the university to
provide an annual sermon at Burwell, (fn. 88) perhaps
already preached on Mid Lent Sunday by 1598
when William Pamplyn left £10 to fund a distribution to the poor on that day. (fn. 89) By the 1830s
the vice-chancellor was to give out 13s. 4d. (fn. 90) at
that Sunday, when, at least between the 1740s
and the 1920s, he drove in state to preach there;
by 1900, however, the sermon was given by an
ordained deputy. (fn. 91)
From the 1640s the university had, with all
the tithes, a rectorial glebe comprising 17 a. of
closes and c. 83 a. of arable, including 42 a.
attached by 1600 to St. Mary's parsonage. (fn. 92)
Probably by 1320, (fn. 93) the rector's house had occupied the site, beside Parsonage Lane north-west
of High Town, of the university's Parsonage
Farm. (fn. 94) The existing house, dating from c.
1600, (fn. 95) is built of clunch and tiled, mostly twostoreyed with attics. It incorporates thick clunch
walls, probably medieval, at its east end, where
it rises into a three-storeyed block with mullioned windows in its two gables. To its northwest a two-storeyed hall with a matching screen
was inserted in the mid 17th century in the angle
between that block and a projecting original
porch and stair turret facing north. Three windows in the main east-west range along the lane
retain, like the turret, clunch jambs and mullions; some doorways have four-centred heads.
To the west the house abuts onto a long clunchwalled two-storeyed tithe barn, one of two mentioned in 1628. (fn. 96) Parts of it collapsed in 1955,
including much of the upper walls added after
1500 above thicker late medieval walling. The
upper floor has six 16th-century woodenmullioned three-light windows. Inside, a clunch
plinth supports chamfered wallposts carrying
crossbeams. The roof of the upper storey has
tiebeams and crownposts. East of the house
is another long range of early 16th-century
outbuildings, originally two-storeyed, partly
timber-framed, and jettied to the north. Its
central section was remodelled in one storey
after 1750, the eastern part being also reduced
in height. It also has arched two- and fourcentred doorways, and on the upper floor a row
of mullioned timber windows, once almost continuous. The 16th-century improvements to
those outbuildings could have been intended to
provide space for storing merchandise and for
large-scale craft production.
In the early 19th century the rectory lessees,
the Dunns and Balls, no longer inhabited the
parsonage house, but let it to labourers, or sometimes put it in repair for younger sons. (fn. 97) The
university sold Parsonage farm's 53 a., including
the 32 a. allotted in 1817 at inclosure for most
of its rectorial glebe arable, (fn. 98) along with the
house, to the county council in 1922. Parsonage
Farm, left to decay in the occupation of
smallholders was sold by the council c. 1960 (fn. 99)
and bought in 1972 for a commune including
6-12 adults. Besides practising organic husbandry, including goat-keeping, they made
scientific instruments in the barns, which they
restored, into the 1990s. (fn. 1)
About 1800 the university, though claiming
tithe from the whole parish, did not exercise its
rights over Burwell's fens, since their only produce, sedge, was worth too little to cover the
cost of collection. When from the 1810s parts of
the fens began to be cultivated, largely as grass
fields, its demands for tithe from them were
challenged c. 1828 by landowners claiming
exemption by prescription, and again in
1835-6. (fn. 2) The tithes, recently partly taken in
kind, partly compounded for by the farmers,
were all commuted in 1841 for a rentcharge of
£1,635. Only the 536 a. of fen along the eastern
edge whose owners had compounded for tithe
in the 1830s were adjudged subject to tithe, the
rest, c. 2,518 a., being declared exempt. Another
36 a., once allotted for intercommon, near the
north-eastern border had their rentcharge
assigned to E. S. Martin, presumably holding
the impropriation of Exning (Suff.). (fn. 3)
In 1544 the vicar of St. Mary's received no
endowment in land, but was merely given a £20
stipend payable by the university. (fn. 4) That stipend
was worth only £14 net c. 1600, when its original
value was almost restored by augmentation. (fn. 5)
The stipend was increased to £35 or more from
the 1650s (fn. 6) and to £80 from 1770. Between 1802
and 1816 it was raised in rapid stages to £300, (fn. 7)
remaining at that level until 1921. (fn. 8) Queen
Anne's Bounty gave augmentations of £600 in
1806, and £180, mostly invested in land, in
1865. (fn. 9) At inclosure, when the vicar only received
in 1817 small common-right allotments, the university ceded c. 14 a. of its glebe for him. (fn. 10) Of
the vicar's glebe, 30 a. by 1827, yielding until c.
1850 £35, and 1870-90 c. £50 in rent, (fn. 11) half was
sold in 1921, the rest by 1927. (fn. 12) In 1921-2 the
university replaced the stipend with a capital
endowment of £5,000, later augmented,
matched by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to
produce together the same income as before. (fn. 13)
From the 1540s the university reserved part
of the rectory mansion house for the vicar to
dwell in. (fn. 14) Not until 1652 did it build a house
for him, apparently taking materials from a
chapel, perhaps at Reach. The house presumably stood on the 4-a. site east of St. Mary's
church, called in 1866 Vicarage close, occupied
by the modern vicarage. (fn. 15) The house had four
hearths in 1674. (fn. 16) In 1826 the university rebuilt
it as a large greybrick house, improved in 1841, (fn. 17)
with seven bedrooms. It continued to own and
maintain that house, which vicars inhabited rent
free, until it was ceded to the living, after renovations, in 1922. (fn. 18) The house was still the vicar's
residence in 1993.
Rectors of St. Mary's were recorded from the
late 12th century, (fn. 19) one c. 1185 perhaps already
a pluralist. (fn. 20) From the 13th century Ramsey
usually gave the wealthy living to well connected
clergy, including c. 1225 William Bottisham,
archdeacon of Nottingham, (fn. 21) by 1279 Fulk
Lovel (d. 1285), archdeacon of Colchester, of a
minor baronial family, (fn. 22) and by 1298 John
Langton, the king's chancellor. (fn. 23) They were
pluralists, as was John of the Chamber, a
queen's clerk, rector from 1325, (fn. 24) and presumably absentees. Chamber's successor, a king's
clerk from Burwell, named by the Crown in
1349, who procured papal privileges for villagers, was in office until 1382. (fn. 25) His successor,
1382-92, an Irish clerk, probably let the rectory
while studying at Cambridge. (fn. 26) From the 1390s
Ramsey mostly presented pluralist graduates,
often theologians, and including, 1513-14,
Thomas Wolsey. Although probably nonresident, the rectors were sometimes benefactors
to Burwell. (fn. 27) One, buried in St. Mary's chancel
in 1492, left money for St Andrew's church
fabric, for the poor, and for local road repairs. (fn. 28)
Parish priests acting under them were occasionally recorded from 1350. (fn. 29) One such priest in
1504 directed his executors to buy for St. Mary's
church a set of vestments for priest, deacon, and
subdeacon. (fn. 30) In 1552 that church had four such
triple sets of vestments, of velvet and damask,
besides two sets of three copes, and other copes
for children, perhaps choir or altar boys; (fn. 31)
An anchoress was enclosed at Burwell c.
1230. (fn. 32) Probably c. 1350 John 'Piers' son'
Haukyn of Burwell gave 60 a. freehold to support a chantry at St. Mary's altar in her church
there. That land was forfeited to the Crown in
1361 after its chaplain had apparently transferred the land, allegedly without licence, to the
Cambridge Corpus Christi guild, and again by
1372. (fn. 33) In 1492, when Burwell had a guild of
the Holy Trinity, a rector left 5 marks towards
building the guildhall. (fn. 34) Along with c. 12 a. given
for obits and lights, including the sepulchre
light, and 2 a. left in 1496 by Thomas Forster
for a light before the crucifix, successively sold
in 1553, 1566, and 1571, the guildhall was confiscated by the Crown in 1553. It was then sold
to Sir Robert Chester, from whom the parish at
once bought it back. (fn. 35) It was used for various
parish purposes until the 1850s. (fn. 36) As it then
stood at the old north-east side of St. Mary's
churchyard, it consisted of a two-storeyed building, largely timber-framed, gabled towards the
north. On the ground floor a passage 5 ft. wide,
serving as a lychgate to the churchyard, with
cusped windows looking into it separated two
rooms, one then a kitchen. The jettied first floor
of three bays contained a long hall, above which
were garrets with dormers in the tiled roof.
Dilapidated by 1859, (fn. 37) it was demolished in
1860. (fn. 38) Its name was sometimes used in the 20th
century for the boys' school built nearby. (fn. 39)
Despite the terms of the appropriation, the
university did not initially choose graduates
as vicars. (fn. 40) A vicar resident in 1560 was no
preacher. (fn. 41) In 1603 a graduate vicar claimed 600
communicants. (fn. 42) Under Robert Metcalfe, vicar
from 1618 and Regius Professor of Hebrew, (fn. 43)
sleeping in church and playing games during
service were occasionally reported. (fn. 44) In the late
1640s Metcalfe employed curates who apparently received from the university double his
vicarial stipend. (fn. 45) About 1647 some puritan parishioners, who accused one curate, besides being
inaudible, of teaching salvation through works,
not faith in Christ, collected over 150 signatures
to a petition to the university to replace him with
a 'godly' minister. Another 130 villagers, headed
by Isaac Barrow, the rectory lessee, defended
the curate as 'painful in his calling', claiming
that a parliamentary committee had acquitted
him of scandalous charges over his former conduct. (fn. 46) He had left by 1650. Two of three vicars,
one favouring the Book of Common Prayer,
appointed in the 1650s quickly resigned. (fn. 47) From
the 1660s, with an improved stipend, the vicars,
regularly Cambridge graduates and not usually
pluralists until 1734, served for longer periods. (fn. 48)
In the 1660s and 1670s the university also sent
Bachelors of Divinity to preach at Burwell up
to ten times a year. (fn. 49) In 1676 the vicar claimed
c. 500 potential communicants: 120 had attended
at Easter. (fn. 50)
After 1734 one vicar, who combined Burwell
with a Suffolk living, was apparently nonresident, usually employing curates. The musical Henry Turner, his successor 1772-1808,
though also from 1782 rector of Newmarket, (fn. 51)
was seldom absent from Burwell, where he held
two services each Sunday, besides the usual
quarterly sacraments, attended c. 1806 by 30-40
communicants. (fn. 52) His successor, J. J. Baines,
1808-54, a 'high and dry' churchman, likewise
serving, with much formality, in person, and
catechizing the parish youth weekly, with
printed aids, claimed 72 communicants by
1820. (fn. 53) In the 1830s his hostility to dissent led
to controversy in the parish. (fn. 54) J. W. Cockshott,
vicar 1857-85, (fn. 55) not only established three
church schools and substantially restored St.
Mary's church, (fn. 56) but procured a curate to serve
North Street who by 1862 held services in a
public house clubroom. In 1863 Cockshott
raised £1,050 to erect on the east of North Street
a mission church, dedicated to St. Andrew, seating 300. It was built of red brick dressed in
ashlar, to a Gothic design, including trefoilheaded triple lancet windows, by R. R. Rowe. (fn. 57)
The university long helped provide a salary of
£120 for curates serving that church until c.
1907, but thereafter lost for lack of a house. (fn. 58) By
the 1860s Cockshott had organized a surpliced
church choir that participated in local choral festivals. (fn. 59) In 1873 the renewed seating in St.
Mary's church could hold over 700, including
450 free sittings. Cockshott, who preached twice
each Sunday and held weekly communions
for the half of 148 communicants regularly
attending, then claimed 700-800 church-goers,
two fifths of the population. (fn. 60) His successor N.
A. B. Borton, who served until 1920, (fn. 61) still had
c. 150 communicants in 1897. (fn. 62) About 1920 the
new St. Andrew's had only monthly communions. (fn. 63) It again had curates in the 1920s, (fn. 64)
but thereafter one vicar had to manage the whole
parish. Four, two still Cambridge men, served
between 1944 and 1975. (fn. 65) By 1987 the new St.
Andrew's had only two services monthly for its
small congregation, and it was closed and sold
for conversion to offices in 1990, when St.
Mary's had c. 80 communicants. (fn. 66) Burwell still
had its own resident vicar in the 1990s. (fn. 67)
The demolished medieval church of ST.
ANDREW, so named by c. 1170, (fn. 68) stood on a
slight rise in a rectangular churchyard east of
the street opposite the north end of the enlarged
St. Mary's churchyard. All that remained above
ground in 1743, when the plan of its chancel and
aisled nave could be traced, was its west end
including the base of a round tower, presumably
12th-century or earlier, which in 1552 had contained three bells, and the south aisle's south
and gabled west walls. The three visible bays of
the south wall had apparently once contained
two-light windows. When Henry Turner pulled
down the ruins in 1772, he found medieval stone
coffins. (fn. 69) Many bones were dug up there in
1952. (fn. 70) Carved medieval stonework found in
1859 when the church girls' school was built on
the site, was placed in the vicarage garden, some
being incorporated in 1863 in the modern St.
Andrew's church. (fn. 71)
The surviving church of ST. MARY, so
named by c. 1225, (fn. 72) in an originally smaller
churchyard to the south-west, is built externally
of fieldstones, largely dressed in limestone, the
interior mostly of clunch ashlar. It comprises a
chancel, an aisled and clerestoried nave with
north and south porches, and a west tower with
a one-storeyed southern annexe. (fn. 73) The earliest
surviving parts are the 12th-century lower
stages, almost 40 ft. high, of the west tower,
slightly elongated east-west. In the upper part
of that portion's thick walls are narrow roundheaded windows in deep splays, almost all
blocked; they include single-light ones, two on
the north side, below the 12th-century string
course, and larger, mostly paired, windows with
shafted jambs above it. The north face has,
besides massive corner buttresses, a gabled central pilaster and on the north-west another 12thcentury angle buttress, rising to carved capitals.
The original lower portion may represent the
defensible soller block of a dwelling house, with
two storeys of chambers above storage space: its
hall range possibly stood on the tower's unarticulated south side before the church's south
aisle was extended after 1300 partly to clasp the
tower there. That aisle's west end with its one
three-light window with quatrefoil tracery probably derives from a 14th-century aisled nave.
That section was later separated from the rest
of the aisle by a half-arch.
The remainder of the church was rebuilt c.
1450-70, probably to designs supplied, as was
believed locally c. 1860, by Reginald Ely (d.
1471), master mason c. 1445-60 of King's
College chapel. The north aisle was begun by
1454, and the south aisle was being glazed c.
1460. (fn. 74) In 1467 John Higham, rector 1439-67,
bequeathed funds for completing the chancel,
newly begun, where an angel corbel bears his
arms. (fn. 75) John Benet, lessee of Ramseys manor
demesne, paid c. 1464 for the wall over the chancel arch and the carpentry of the nave roof. (fn. 76) As
then rebuilt the light and spacious church has a
nave and aisles of five bays, with a clerestory
of two windows to a bay, and a three-bayed
chancel, all embattled and with external stepped
buttresses. Above the wide bays of the nave
arcade the uprights of two tiers of cusped stone
panelling rise into the mullions of the three-light
windows of the almost continuous clerestory,
separated by stone shafts carrying the roof, alternate ones rising from the apexes of the arcade
arches. The transomed three-light aisle windows
have mouchettes and quatrefoils in their upper
tracery. Stone panelling above the chancel arch,
surrounding a rose window, has in its middle
tier, between niches, square panels, alternately
of star-pattern bearing shields and of radiating
encircled mouchettes. The ornate chancel has at
the sides four-light transomed windows and to
the east an elaborate one of five lights. That and
many aisle windows contain the cusped lobes,
grouped in fours, typical of Ely's work at King's
College. Internally the chancel windows are separated by all tall niches with spired and crocketed
canopies. The chancel has in its south-east angle
sedilia with a corbelled piscina. A stair from its
north side leads to a crypt below its east end,
with two windows and containing in its east wall
a recess with a stone altar slab, in its south wall
a medieval fireplace. Perhaps meant to house a
recluse, the crypt was known c. 1861, when the
stair was reopened, as the 'monk's hole'. (fn. 77) The
north and south porches, also both 15thcentury, the latter reconstructed after 1860,
open into the aisles' westernmost bays; they are
of similar design, both buttressed with two-light
side-windows. The more elaborate north porch
has a fan vault. Above the central niche of the
five over its outer archway stands an image of
St. George slaying the dragon. Probably in the
1470s, when William Sygar left money for
making the bell tower, (fn. 78) the tower was heightened by three more stages, (fn. 79) with two-light
belfry windows in the lowest of them. The upper
two stages, with an embattled crown, are octagonal, with pinnacles rising on alternate faces.
The tower then received stepped angle buttresses, except on the south-east, and a stair
turret at the south-west. A new west doorway
and four-light west window were inserted in its
older lower stages. A room with narrow windows, suitable for a sacristy, was added beyond
the old aisle west wall, over which a window was
placed. Its east doorway retains a 15th-century
door of oak planks with iron hinges.
The low-pitched roofs in the chancel, nave,
and aisles, all presumably of the 1460s and to
similar designs, rest in the chancel and north
aisle on stone angel corbels. Their moulded tiebeams are supported by curved braces on
wallposts, the spandrels traceried. The chancel
wallposts are carved with men holding books.
All the roofs have cornices, carved with religious
emblems and scenes, especially at the nave east
end, or with grotesques, including fabulous or
heraldic beasts. The octagonal 15th-century font
was covered in 1743 by an ornate wooden spire,
probably removed c. 1822. Under the chancel
arch survive the traceried panels of the lower
half of the five-bayed 15th-century screen,
apparently complete in 1743, but cut down by
1850. (fn. 80) The roodbeam settings are visible above,
along with the upper doorway of the roodstair
on the north side. In the chancel much 15thcentury woodwork, traceried and buttressed, has
been incorporated in later wall panelling and
choirstalls. A worn painting of St. Christopher
remains near the nave north door. John
Lawrence or Wardeboys, the last abbot of
Ramsey 1507-39, who died in 1542, requesting
burial in St. Mary's, Burwell, (fn. 81) is probably commemorated by the brass of a cassocked and
surpliced priest under a triple canopy, which
survives in the chancel. Despite the breaking of
many 'superstitious' windows by William
Dowsing in 1644, (fn. 82) glass with the arms of
Lancaster and Tiptoft probably survived in the
church in the late 17th century. (fn. 83)
Large monuments installed at the chancel east
end in the early 1610s destroyed two niches
there. In the south-east corner was that for
making which Lee Cotton (d. 1613) left £40; (fn. 84)
his armoured effigy lay on a panelled tombchest
under a canopy borne by three Doric columns.
In the north-east corner figures of the lay rector,
Thomas Gerard (d. 1613), also armoured, and
his wife Alice (d. 1609), (fn. 85) knelt between similar
columns supporting an entablature. Dame Anne
Russell (d. 1717) had hanging tablets with
inscriptions in black marble amid scrolly surrounds erected on the chancel south wall for her
husband Sir William (d. 1663), their only child
Elizabeth (d.v.p.), and herself. (fn. 86) There are other
19th-century stone and marble wall tablets in
the nave and aisles to vicars and members of the
Isaacson family.
The late medieval church fabric has been substantially preserved from the 17th century by
funds drawn, despite occasional disputes, from
Burwell's 100-a. Church and Town lands. (fn. 87) In
the early 18th century, when much money was
borrowed in the 1720s, (fn. 88) new square pews
installed c. 1710 filled the well paved nave. A
three-decker pulpit stood by 1743 against a nave
south pier, and a vestry and library, probably
made in 1726, (fn. 89) with glass-fronted presses were
installed at the south aisle west end. (fn. 90) About
1860 there were still 67 pews, including the 'hall
pew' over the north door from which the
Ramseys manor lessee overlooked the congregation. (fn. 91) New wainscotting had been installed in
1750. In the 1770s Henry Turner took control
of the charity, devoting almost all its spare
income to repairing the church thoroughly. (fn. 92) In
1799 he had the lead-covered wooden spirelet,
partly open, on the tower, still containing a sanctus bell of 1776, renovated. (fn. 93) J. J. Baines, managing the charity from 1816, used its income in
1823-4 to erect across the tower arch, to Gothick
designs, a gallery above three new pews. Baines
installed in it a barrel organ, played in the 1850s
by the schoolmaster. It perhaps replaced the village band, earlier housed in a singing pew, for
whom a bassoon had been bought in 1815. (fn. 94)
Presumably about that time the late Hanoverian
royal arms, as used 1816-37, were placed on the
central carved panel above the chancel arch.
Thereafter Baines accumulated the charity
income, allegedly fearing that the dilapidated
roofs, through which rain seeped down the
walls, might suddenly require expensive repairs.
Work hastily started when he was accused of
malversation in 1836 had by 1837 completed
only the repair of the south aisle roof. The
consequent legal proceedings resulted in 1855 in
a judgement assigning half the charity income
for church repairs. (fn. 95) Low church rates were
levied without trouble until 1858, when T. T.
Ball, whose father Edward was supporting a
church rate abolition bill in parliament, successfully proposed, the charity yielding considerable
funds, that they be replaced by voluntary contributions of similar amounts, which ceased within
a few years. (fn. 96)
In 1861-2 J. W. Cockshott had the charity
estate mortgaged to help renew much stonework
and paving in the nave and aisles, and provide
new seating in oak there. That restoration swept
away c. 50 of the pews, which had accommodated under 500, only a quarter of the population, and the west gallery, where 25 children
had sat. A new pulpit was placed by the chancel
arch. (fn. 97) In 1868 Cambridge university restored
the chancel, releading its roof and renewing the
window tracery. The 17th-century monuments
were moved, the Gerard and Russell ones to the
aisles, Lee Cotton's to the vestry, and the mutilated niches and canopies reinstated, while stalls
replaced pews. (fn. 98) In 1877 the university added a
stone reredos, designed by A. W. Blomefield,
filled with mosaic, mostly painted over in 1965. (fn. 99)
In the late 1890s the tower and clerestory were
restored. (fn. 1) A new organ obtained in 1862, (fn. 2)
replaced or improved 1877 x 1880, then stood
in the chancel. In 1967 it was enlarged and electrified, and moved to a new gallery under the
tower arch over Gothic screenwork already
installed by Borton there and across the south
aisle west end, where a choir vestry was built. (fn. 3)
Bequests from the Hurley family in the 1930s
paid for stained glass in the aisle east windows
and provided c. £50 yearly to reward the choirboys and maintain and beautify the church. (fn. 4)
Between 1979 and the 1990s further expensive
repairs were undertaken. (fn. 5)
In 1552 St. Mary's had two silver gilt chalices
and patens, one bequeathed in 1541 by Abbot
Lawrence with his best vestment. (fn. 6) Its modern
plate includes a cup and paten of 1578, and an
almsdish and flagon bought in 1739, all silver
gilt. (fn. 7) There were four bells in 1552, (fn. 8) apparently
recast in 1637-8. A fifth apparently added by
1709 was recast in 1723. (fn. 9) Three trebles were
added in 1955. (fn. 10) A new 30-hour clock was
bought for the tower in 1748, and a trigonometrical sundial procured c. 1805. (fn. 11)
Parish registers for St. Mary's, beginning in
1562, are substantially complete, save for gaps
for 1580-98 and from the late 1630s to 1654. (fn. 12)
In 1315 Ramsey abbey acquired 1 a. by
exchange to enlarge St. Mary's churchyard, (fn. 13) to
which the parish added another 1 a. to the north
in 1859, so opening up the view of the church. (fn. 14)
It remained in use in the 20th century. (fn. 15) In 1921
the parish council acquired 3 a. east of Ness
Road for another burial ground, opened in 1923,
upon which a chapel was soon after built. (fn. 16)