page_title: Church of St Mary the Virgin, Gamlingay
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Church of St Mary the Virgin, Gamlingay / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: The seats in the w:chancel in the Church of St Mary the Virgin in w:Gamlingay in w:Cambridgeshire date to about 1442
context_page_description: The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the parish church for the village of Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire and is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. Gamlingay is part of the ecclesiastical parish of Gamlingay with Hatley St George and East Hatley. The church is mainly 13th-century with extensive rebuilding in the 14th and 15th centuries. It has been a Grade I listed building since 1967 and comes under the St Neots Deanery in the Diocese of Ely. Nikolaus Pevsner in 1954 described the church as "... the most impressive church in this part of the county."
context_section_description: A church existed in the parish before 1120 but what can be seen today is no earlier than the 13th-century: this includes the South and North nave arcades, the North aisle and the chancel. St Mary's church is built in the Early English style with a square tower (now containing eight bells) from fieldstones and local ironstone. The South aisle and South chapel date to about 1300 while the North porch is also a 14th-century addition. Remodelling of the church in the 15th and 16th-centuries affected the entire building except for the nave arcades.
  The West tower is 13th-century in origin and was largely rebuilt in the 14th and 15th-centuries. The tower is in two heights divided by a string course at the base of the belfry, which has an embattled parapet. Above each tower window is a gargoyle. The doorway to the stair turret can be found inside the church at the East end of the North wall with the stairs ascending to the bell chamber. On the East face of the tower the line of an earlier steep-pitched nave roof is still visible. The acute spire is a modern replacement while the cross tree is original. The ground stage of the East wall of the tower is unusually thick and the tower arch is rather oddly contrived; earlier walling has possibly been encased. 
  The present vestry dates from the 1880 restoration while the unusual shape of the vestry table leads us to believe it may be the sounding board of the pulpit prior to that presently used, the old pulpit having come from Ely House in Holborn.
  The chancel with its chamfered plinth and embattled parapet is typically 13th-century in design and scale while much of the detail dates to 1442–43 when Merton College, Oxford, who were part patrons, spent 151s 2d on repairs to the chancel. The South transept chapel was remodelled between 1460 and 1490 by the guilds of The Guild of the Blessed Trinity and the Gamlingay Guild while the 14th-century North transeptal chapel was remodelled at the expense of Walter Taylard (d. 1466) who was Merton College's steward in Gamlingay and who may have been a descendant of the founder's sister. The consecration of the high altar and an altar on the North side of the church by Bishop John Alcock in 1490 may point to when these alterations were finished. 
  The 19th-century and later repairs include a major restoration in 1880 when the vestry and South porch were rebuilt to the design of J. P. St Aubyn. Among the church fittings are a reredos (not in situ) and other items from a bequest made by William Meadston of Woodbury (d. 1683). The chancel has a group of grotesque gargoyles: two on the North side and two at the East end; a smaller fifth gargoyle below the apex of the East gable supports an attached shaft for the gable cross. The 14th-century chancel arch is of two orders, chamfered to the East and with the outer order dying against the side walls. The nave has a North arcade of five bays with arches of two chamfered orders standing on octagonal piers with moulded caps and bases. The nave is pierced by a squint to the chancel.
  The North aisle is of four bays with the East bay of the arcade leading into the North chapel. The West wall was partially rebuilt in the 15th-century. The aisle has four windows, three of which, including the West window, are late mediaeval. At the East end of the long wall is the West half of a 13th-century tomb recess; the East half of the recess was demolished with the rest of the wall when the North chapel was built. The North chapel has two 15th-century windows while a two-centred arch between the North chapel and the aisle probably dates to the  14th-century. The South porch was rebuilt during the restoration of 1880 and is late mediaeval in design. It has an embattled parapet with modern side windows. The roofs of the nave, its aisles and the two chapels are late mediaeval. The chancel roof is modern but is supported on eight 15th-century corbels carved as half angels holding blank shields.
  The stoup outside and immediately to the South of the West door with a projecting broken bowl is late mediaeval. The sundial in the 
caption: The seats in the chancel date to about 1442
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