HOUGHTON : CHURCH OF ST MARY
Church Post Code PE28 2AY
Open to visitors
It was a fairly dull afternoon in early October 2025 and a long overdue re-visit to the church of St Mary at Houghton. I had been trying to visit the church here for a few months but building work was ongoing. I popped my yearly accounts in to my accountant in St Ives that morning so decided to take the camera along just in case; and was pleased to find all builders gone and the church again open to visitors.
The church of St Mary is the parish church for Houghton and Wyton, which are two villages very close together on the A1123, which connects Hartford and the eastern end of Huntingdon to St Ives. Huntingdon is some three miles away to the west with St Ives a little further off to the east. Peterborough is just over 20 miles away to the north with Google Maps suggesting for some inexplicable reason, that I should be able to cycle this in less than two hours!
Each village has its own medieval church but the church of All Saints at Wyton has been closed since 1974, with the spiritual needs of the two villages looked after by St Mary. Houghton is set on the north bank of the River Great Ouse; with Houghton Mill, close to the church, being a landmark in the village. There is a history of milling in the village here for more than 1,000 years but the present structure dates from the 18th century; being rebuilt after a fire destroyed the previous structure in 1748. Once prosperous, the mill fell in to hard times and was in danger of being taken down at one point before it found its way in to the Hands of English Heritage in 1938,
The village was mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, with a church recorded in land that was owned by Ramsey Abbey. No priest was mentioned but there was mention of a priest at Wyton so perhaps one priest covered both villages.
At the time of the census of 2021 the population of the two villages was 1,748. The church of St Mary is located centrally, to the south west of the village centre with its most attractive thatched clock tower.
Thatched cottages surround the church; a delightful setting with Houghton named one of the best places to live in the east by the Sunday times in 2016. The slim broach spire stands out above the thatch as the visitor approached from the north.
The church of St Mary consists of west tower with spire, nave with north aisle and north clerestory, south porch and chancel. The church here mainly dates from the 14th century, with nothing remaining of that earlier church mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the chancel is 13th century but was rebuilt in 1851. Major rebuilding took place here during the 14th century with a north aisle of four bays being added around 1350.
There was further restoration here between 1870 and 1871 and further restoration here in very recent times, with the scaffolding not long removed!
This was a revisit, having previously visited here back in 2009. The lighting on that day was considerably better and I have included a few shots from that day at the end of this piece.
I entered in through a gate to the east; being watched by a thatched pheasant on the roof of a property opposite; the church grounds here are quite tight and there are plenty of trees around; consequently this is not the easiest of churches to photograph from the exterior. The west tower is of three stages, perpendicular from the west as I photographed it through the trees. The octagonal broach spire, which has two tiers of lucarne windows, rests on an octagonal, pinnacled and battlemented base.
The visitor enters in through the 16th century south porch, which has a date carved in to it of 1664, which I daresay is a date stamp detailing a time of repair. There is no clerestory to the south but the clerestory to the north takes the form of four small windows. There is a bricked in window at the east end of the north aisle.
It is far easier to shoot the church from the east; the east window is of three lights. The chancel was rebuilt in 1851 and there is a clear line where to show where the rebuilding took place.
When Revd Owen had his study of the church bells in Huntingdonshire published in 1899 he noted that there were five bells in the ring here with four of these being cast locally by William Haulsey of St Ives in 1626.
Today thought there is a ring of six with the first bell of the ring cast by Mears and Stainbank of London in 1968. Of the bells that were present in Owen’s day, the then first of the ring was attributed to the Newcombe foundry of Leicester in the 16th century. This bell was inscribed ‘VIRG BEGO EGAHC’ which it is suggested should have read ‘VIRGO BEGA HEC’ along with a rather uncomplimentary description of the person doing the lettering!
The first of Haulsey’s four is inscribed ‘Man taketh paine but God giveth gnyne 1626’ with his second reading ‘He that will be meri let him be meri in the Lord’ My spell checker does not care for Haulsey’s English inscriptions! Haulsey’s third, and the fifth of the current ring reads ‘NON CLAMOR SED AMOR CANTAT IN AVRE DEI’ which translates as ‘Not noise but love sounds in the ear of God’ The final in the ring reads CVM CANO BVSTA MORI CVM PULPITA VEVERE DISE’ which translated, perhaps roughly, as ‘When I sing from the tomb learn to die when in the pulpit learn to live’.
I tried the south door; it was unlocked and we were good to go! Moving inside, it was pretty dark, which is not surprising as it was a dull day and with no clerestory to the south and small clerestory windows to the north; with trees running alongside.
The mid 14th century north aisle is of four bays with octagonal piers and moulded capitals. Walls are whitewashed and fitting appear to date from the periods of Victorian restoration. Looking to the west, the church organ obscures the tower arch, with doorway to the tower stairs alongside to the south.
The chancel arch dates from the 13th century, which survived the mid 19th century rebuilding, as did the 13th century double piscina, in its usual position against the south wall of the chancel. The altar is plain and simple, with a cross and two candlesticks; with green altar cloth, this being the liturgical colour used to denote ‘Ordinary Times’ the period between the major Christian festivals; which in this case would be the time between Pentecost and Advent.
The east window is of three lights and has stained glass which shows the risen Christ central, with hand raised in blessing. He wears as blue robe with a red background, symbolic of his blood which was shed. Mary the mother of Jesus stands to Christ’s right hand side, the left as we look at it; hands at prayer and curiously not wearing her traditional blue; albeit the background being of that colour. John stands to Christ’s left hand side, holding a book and quill.
Modern stained glass on the south wall of the chancel depicts several Christian symbols including the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God as well as the crown of thorns intertwined around a cross with nails inside the crown. We see the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove carrying a communion wafer and the Pelican in its piety; this referring to a medieval fable where the pelican drawing blood from its own breast to feed its young. This was an often used analogy to Christ shedding his blood for his children.
Other stained glass here includes a two light window detailing the scene of Easter morning when an Angel of the Lord appears to the three Mary’s outside the empty tomb. The angel points upwards towards Heaven; ‘He is not here He is risen’. The three Mary’s look stunned, with none of them able to look the angel in the eye. Mary Magdalene, with her traditional long hair, is to the left of the trio, head down and holding on to the spices with would have anointed Jesus’ body.
We also have a rather uninspiring depiction of the risen Christ meeting Mary Magdalene on Easter morning.
In the north aisle we have more modern stained glass showing a scene from Revelation Chapter 12 where the Archangel Michael slays Satan in the form of a dragon which has seven crowned heads and 10 horns. Alongside the Virgin Mary holds the baby Jesus, watching on intently as the Holy Spirit shines down on them. More modern glass shows a depiction of both the medieval churches at Houghton and Wyton, along with other local landmarks such as Houghton Mill, flower mills and aircraft from RAF Wyton.
Above centre, the same stained glass window of the three Mary's on a previous visit with the sun casting multi coloured reflections.
There is nothing of any great age or rarity in the tight church grounds here, but mention must be made of one grave to the south of the church; this being to blacksmith Thomas Garner who died in September 1826, aged 77 years. There is nothing special about the stone itself but the epitaph is wonderful and reads as follows… ‘My sledge and hammers lie declined/ My bellows too have lost their wind/ My fires extinct my forge decay’d/ My vice is in the dust all laid/ My coal is spent my iron gone/ My nails are drove my work is done/ My time dried corpse lies here at rest/ My soul smoke like soars to be blest’.
This is not an inscription that was produced solely for Thomas; a similar gravestone, worded slightly differently and with the last few lines of the epitaph sunk in to the ground stands at the church of Holy Cross at Great Ponton in Lincolnshire.
I enjoyed my brief time here; it was good to see this church open again after its recent building works. An opening and welcoming church in a lovely village; what’s not to like! Well worth taking a look at if you are in the area. There are open churches at the Hemingfords nearby and Godmanchester, with All Saints in Huntingdon open on Saturday morning; likewise I have found All Saints at St Ives open on a Friday morning, one of two market days in the town.
And to end this look at St Mary at Houghton, three photographs from a previous trip in better lighting.
