The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

parish church of

Letchworth Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2011 census was 33,249. Letchworth ...

in Hertfordshire. A church appears to have been on the site since before the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

. The current church was built in the late 12th century and is Grade II listed. It comes under the

Diocese of St Albans The Diocese of St Albans forms part of the Province of Canterbury in England and is part of the wider Church of England, in turn part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The diocese is home to more than 1.6 million people and comprises the hi ...

. The original dedication of the church is unknown; it was rededicated to St Mary during the First World War. The church is the oldest building in the area and is only 60 feet long inside. Mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086, parts of the building date to the 11th century and is built on the remains of an older Saxon structure. However, most of what is seen today dates to the late 12th century and was reroofed in the 15th century when the south porch was also added. The

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

has three bays and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

. The church has a pyramidical timber-framed

bell-cot A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

with a tiled roof at the west end inside which is a bell dating to the 14th century. The exterior is of flint and ironstone random rubble, partly rendered, with freestone dressings and ashlar, brick and tile

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es. The windows in the nave have a Y

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the ...

. The gabled porch has a square headed doorway with shields in

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s. Inside there is a carved effigy of the Crusader Sir Richard de Montfichet on a window sill. His heart is reputedly buried under the church. After 1903 the small rural parish of Letchworth changed dramatically with the development of Letchworth Garden City. In 1908 a "mission church" dedicated to St Michael was opened on Norton Way South, closer to the new town centre. This in turn was replaced by another church (also dedicated to St Michael) on Broadway, which opened in 1967. The new St Michael's church officially became the parish church of the ecclesiastical parish of Letchworth (covering only the south-western part of the larger Garden City) in November 1967, with the old parish church of St Mary's thereafter being a chapel of ease to St Michael's. Structural problems with the 1960s St Michael's building led to its closure in December 2019, but St Mary's continues in use.

Notable burials

* W. F. Harvey (1885-1937), horror writer, is buried in the churchyard.Scott Wilson, ''Resting Places: The Burial Places of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'' 3rd ed., McFarland & Company, Inc., Publisher (2016)
-

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pg 323

References

External links

Website of the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Letchworth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Mary's Church, Letchworth

History of Hertfordshire Grade II listed churches in Hertfordshire Letchworth Buildings and structures in Letchworth