St Mary in the Marsh is a parish in Norwich in Norfolk, England, formerly of a church of the same name. Founded prior to the Norman Conquest, the church was absorbed into the precinct of Norwich Cathedral between 1250 and 1265, though retained its status as a parish church. In 1564 due to high upkeep costs, the church was closed and since that year the parish has operated without a church. The parishes of St Vedast and St Peter Parmentergate were amalgamated into the parish. The church was gutted and converted into tenements. In 1775, a Georgian terrace was built on the site, though the interior walls of the building retain some fabric of the church walls and foundations. The parish has been since the 16th century based in St Luke's Chapel of Norwich Cathedral, where the church's original font remains as well as the Despenser Reredos.
The church and thus parish was dedicated to Mary the Virgin, one of 196 such dedications in Norfolk. Its suffix derives from the low-lying location of the church which was a marsh and would have needed drainage.[1]
History
The presence of St Mary in the Marsh before the Norman Conquest is documented in two Anglo-Saxon wills.[2] This includes the undated Old English will of Sifflaed, involving cattle.[1]
The church was known in Latin as Sancte Maria in (de) marisco in the 12th century.[1] The Norwich Cathedral Register, dated to around 1300, confirms that St Mary in the Marsh was founded long before the Norman Conquest.[3] The control of the church by the cathedral priory was acknowledged in an 1154 papal bull, and an 1157 charter of Henry II confirmed the gifts and liberties of his predecessors relating to the church of sancte Marie de marisco.[1]
1250–1564: Absorption into the Norwich Cathedral precinct
St Mary in the Marsh was the only church that is definitely pre-Conquest which was later retained within the cathedral's precinct; its absorption into the precinct took place between 1250 and 1265, and the church was enclosed behind a wall.[2] It became one of four churches that the precinct enclosed.[4] The church specifically became part of the Norwich Cathedral close.[3] It, along with two of the other churches taken into the precinct (St Ethelbert's and St Helen's), retained its right of burial as a parish church.[2] The enclosure brought administrative problems. In 1272, there was a significant transfer of rights and parishioners in favour of the cathedral priory, overseen by Bishop Scarning.[1] When the church of St Ethelbert was burnt the same year, St Mary's was the only church in the cathedral close left standing.[4] St Ethelbert's parish was amalgamated with that of St Mary's. By this time, the church was a rectory.[1]
In the final quarter of the 13th century, almonry boys of the cathedral would, after the end of Sunday Mass, go to St Mary in the Marsh to sing the chant at divine service, reading and intoning the psalms. Joan Greatrex has put forward that this musical involvement may have been the earliest indication of the existence of a rudimentary song school.[5]
Through the Middle Ages, the church continued to receive tithes from secular individuals living in the cathedral precinct. 14th century accounts of the communar refer to the church's cemetery and walls.[2] John de Dodelington, rector in 1324, acquired land in 1329 and a messuage in 1331, both immediately south of the churchyard, and then transferred them to the cathedral prior, William de Clayton, in the latter year. Dodelington also had interest in a property at the southern end of Tombland in 1330, and transferred this property to the cathedral priory in 1331.[1] In 1378, the church was recorded as Sancte Maria del Merssh.[1] Whereas the wealthiest lay people sought burial in the cathedral church, servants of the priory were likely to be buried at St Mary in the Marsh.[6] In the 15th and 16th centuries, burials at the church are recorded.[2] The church appears on Cuningham's plan of Norwich in 1558, though its precise form here cannot be made out. In 1559, the final rector of St Mary in the Marsh, John Toller, was appointed.[2]
1564–1775: Closure, gutting, and conversion into tenements
In 1564, the dean and chapter, the church's patrons, made the decision to close the church because the upkeep of St Mary's was too great.[4] From this year until the present day, the parish has operated without a church, which is unique in Norfolk.[7] The churchyard, buildings, bells, and lead of the church were initially reserved to the use of the dean and chapter.[1] The dean stripped the church of its lead roof,[4] worth £160 once sold, though 18th-century antiquary Francis Blomefield later stated that "it was sworn in 1568, that he never brought one penny of it into account". After this, the dean and chapter sold the rest of the building to the chancellor of the diocese for £80.[1] The chancellor gutted the church's interior and a large amount of its stonework.[4][1] Its bells were sold. St Luke's chapel in the cathedral housed the font from St Mary's and it resides there today.[4] Blomefield later documented the gutting, expressing his own disapproval.[2] He wrote, "the Bishop assuming a strange and unwarrantable power of desecrating the said church; an example I never met with in any age before, or since; and not only so, but of converting the structure itself to the use of the cathedral".[1]
Also in 1564, the parishes of St Vedast, St Peter Parmentergate, and St Mary were amalgamated into a singular parish.[2] The church's congregation moved to worship in the south nave aisle of the cathedral instead,[4][2] this being renamed from the chapel of St John the Baptist, to the chapel of St Mary and St John, where income from the rectory and parsonage of St Mary's was redirected.[1] The congregation later moved to the bishop's chapel,[4] and then, around 30 years after the original church was closed, St Luke's chapel,[4][7] in the Cathedral's south ambulatory, which the parish has used ever since.[7] They adopted the cloister garth of the cathedral for their burials.[2][1]
The church did not yet see demolition, instead standing for some time and then being turned into a dwelling house.[2][4] By 1564, the church had been converted and was leased as two separate properties. That year, the earliest Minute Book of the dean and chapter referred to the "late dissolved parish church of Sanct Maryes in ye Maryesehe".[2]
A plan from between 1761 and 1775 shows what appears to be an outline of the church.[2][1] On this plan, the former churchyard is divided into small tenements on a property with the name Gascoin and Lines. Spinsters Ann and Rachel Brigham had leased land to the north and south of the church, and the remaining period of the lease was purchased by chancellor of the diocese George Sandby who also owned properties such as stables, shops, tenements, and a public house. Some of these were adjoining properties to the churchyard.[2]
1775–present: 10 and 12 The Close (St Mary's Chant)
10 and 12 The Close was built on the site in 1775.[2][4] This terrace, built by Stephen Moore in a Georgian style and for a time known as St Mary's Chant,[2] is present today.[2][4][3] It reuses the north wall of the church as its central spinal wall. Additionally, the wall inside Number 12 features two 16th-century windows from the church.[2]
Portions of the church, possibly a large part of the building, still remain within numbers 10 and 12 The Close. This building is now internally divided and is clad with Georgian brick. The church's parish still exists and functions without a church,[4] remaining in St Luke's Chapel, where the Despenser Reredos also resides.[7]
Architecture
The 1760 or 1761 outline of the church shows it with a nave, chancel, south porch and west round tower.[3][4][2] Here, the west porch adjoining the tower is narrow, and a buttressed transept or chapel appears to extend from the south wall.[2]
Remaining fabric
Present inside 12 The Close, there remains a tall wall running north–south which is coursed and covered in limewash. It has a visible height of 4.3 metres (14 ft) and a visible length of 7 metres (23 ft).[1] A capital with an eroded head and animals is in the southern end, and another carved yet eroded head is present in the wall further north. There are flint walls in the cellar that extend 6 metres (20 ft) north and south. They have no visible ashlar, and are much thicker than others in the building.[1] The north side of a stair to its cellar has an blocked window with transom and lozenge mullions which is about 2.14 metres (7.0 ft) wide.[2][1] This is from the 16th century,[2] and possibly includes the eastern reveal of an earlier window that may be from the church.[1] At ground floor level, there is a blocked 16th-century window, which can be seen from the present cellar stairs.[2][1]
Font
The font from St Mary in the Marsh survives, and is now in Norwich Cathedral,[8] in the Chapel of St Luke.[9] It is somewhat damaged,[1] and is of limestone,[8] possibly clunch. The base has alternating seated figures of the four doctors of the Church and evangelist symbols. On the stem, there are standing saints in niches.[1] There are eight demi-angels that have their wings outstretched and which support the basin.[8] Though the basin is cylindrical,[1] there are eight more angels which stand upright on its corners, and these bracket scenes of the sacraments on the sides.[8] It also depicts the Crucifixion. Each depiction is under a fictive vaulted canopy.[1] Of eight medieval fonts with figural decoration to survive in Norwich, it is the only one to depict the Seven Sacraments.[9] It may date from the 15th century, and was possibly a retort to the Lollards who opposed much of what it zealously depicts. Ayers et al. have argued that it may be the earliest of all Sacrament fonts.[1]
Location
Ground levels were around 2.7 metres (8.9 ft) below the present surface when the church was built. It was adjacent to a pasture named Cowholme. Based on mapped reconstructions of the road pattern prior to the cathedral, there was possibly a north–south road which ran from the river crossing at Whitefriars Bridge, south past St Martin at Palace and the possible site of Holy Trinity, to St Mary in the Marsh, then to St Vedast. There may have been an eastern projection of Queen Street which may have crossed Tombland and gone toward the river, likely intersecting with the north–south road near St Mary's.[1]
Once the cathedral was present, the church site was to the south of the cathedral's Lower Close.[3] The southern precinct wall likely formed a dogleg around the churchyard.[1] This churchyard was a large area of about 2,000 square metres (2,400 sq yd).[2][1] Post-medieval leases refer to parts of the churchyard on both its north and south sides as well as to 'the church stile'.[2]
Parish
The parish of St Mary's shared the cathedral precinct with that of St Ethelbert's and St Helen's parishes. In addition to this, part of St Mary's parish extended south of the cathedral close to St Faith's Lane (formerly Horsefair). It was likely bounded by the Dallingfleet stream. It might have included Ratonrowe, an area outside the priory gates, though jurisdiction in this area was disputed. Bounding the parish on its east was the River Wensum, and it initially met the boundaries of St Helen's and Holy Trinity to the north though was later extended on this side to the precinct wall. The parish became part of St Peter Parmentergate's in 1564.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Ayers, Brian; Haynes, Clare; Heslop, Sandy; Lunnon, Helen; Dobson, David (2026). The Parish Churches of Medieval Norwich: City, Community and Architecture. Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow Books. pp. 294–297. ISBN 979-8-88857-182-8.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Gilchrist 2005, pp. 31–33.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Site of Church of St Mary in the Marsh, Lower Close, Norwich". Norfolk Heritage Explorer. Retrieved 3 July 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Groves, Nicholas (2010). The Medieval Churches of the City of Norwich. Norwich Heritage Economic and Regeneration Trust. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-9560385-2-4.
- ↑ Greatrex, Joan (1994). "The Almonry School of Norwich Cathedral Priory in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries". Studies in Church History. 31: 172–173. doi:10.1017/S0424208400012869. ISSN 0424-2084.
- ↑ Gilchrist 2005, p. 94.
- 1 2 3 4 Mortlock, D. P.; Roberts, C. V. (2017). The Guide to Norfolk Churches: Third Revised and Enlarged Edition. Havertown: The Lutterworth Press. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-7188-9511-2.
- 1 2 3 4 Gillette & Stewart 2023, pp. 386–387.
- 1 2 Gillette & Stewart 2023, p. 73.
Sources
- Gilchrist, Roberta (2005). Norwich Cathedral Close The Evolution of the English Cathedral Landscape. Studies in the History of Medieval Religion. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-78327-096-5.
- Gillette, Amy; Stewart, Zachary, eds. (3 October 2023). The Baptismal Font Canopy of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich. Brill Publishing. doi:10.1163/9789004680579. ISBN 978-90-04-68057-9.