The Church of St Mary-by-the-Market, better known as Great St Mary’s, is, as it stands at present, a fine example of the latest style of English architecture. Two churches, when it was built, had already occupied the site. The first, entirely parochial, was probably built in Norman times, but was burned down in 1290. By that time, however, the University then emerging from its embryonic state into actual life, had begun to use it for its meetings. The church formed, as it were, the earliest Senate House. After the fire, which, like so many medieval catastrophes, was put down to the Jews, the structure was renewed in the style of the period. We find that Thomas de L’Isle, Bishop of Ely, granted a license for the consecration of the High Altar in 1346; and that, in 1351, the consecration took place under his successor, Simon of Langham. The chancel[21] still retains some features of this remodelled church. In the year after the consecration, the Gild of the Blessed Virgin Mary, parishioners of this church, joined with the Gild of Corpus Christi in the foundation of Corpus College; and, in 1342, Edward III. had granted the advowson of St Mary’s to the scholars of King’s Hall. In this way it happened that, at the subsequent rebuilding of the church, the town, the University, and the college were equally concerned in it. The present building was begun in 1478, when John Morton was Bishop of Ely, and the main structure, roughly speaking, belongs to the period between that year and 1491. It is supposed that, during this reconstruction, the services were held in the chancel, which, presumably, was merely remodelled in the perpendicular manner. The character of the nave is, for its period, strikingly excellent, and the work is not unlike that at St Nicholas, Lynn, and other fine churches in the eastern counties. The surface-ornament in the spandrils of the chancel-arch and nave arcade is exceptionally good, and the depression of the arches is very slight. Characteristically, the piers have no capitals, but a small shaft with[22] a plain capital carries the innermost moulding. But the best feature of the interior is the high, plain clerestory, from which the church originally received its principal light. This forms, as it were, a wall of glass running along the upper storey of the church. Its lowest part is panelled, forming a kind of mock triforium. On the whole, there are few more stately churches of the date in England.

Although this nave was completed in 1491, it was not ready for service till 1519, when the nave was seated and the Great Rood suspended from the chancel-arch. Meanwhile, the tower had been begun in 1491, and progressed very slowly. In 1515 it was at a standstill and had a thatched roof. The west window, however, which, considering that it belongs to Henry VIII.’s reign, is surprisingly good Gothic, was glazed by 1536. After this time a certain amount of work went on, and the tower was carried up to the string-course. In 1576, Sir Walter Mildmay gave twenty tons of freestone towards the building, which was employed in erecting a somewhat heavy Italianised porch at the west end. This, with its great pediment[23] and the clock above it, filled up the space between the buttresses and reached up to the sill of the west window. Sir Walter Mildmay promised other materials for the completion of the tower by a stone spire. This never took place, and, in 1593, the parish decided to add a final storey on their own account, which was completed in 1596. This storey, with its octagonal corner-turrets and debased windows, is nevertheless in no violent contrast to the work below. In 1608, the turrets were completed and stone balls were placed upon the pinnacles by Robert Grumbold, to whom we owe the balls on Clare Bridge.

The last internal addition to the church was the magnificent rood-loft, finished in 1523. It extended not only across the chancel-arch, but across the northern arch, leading to the Chapel of St Andrew, and the southern, leading to the Chapel of Our Lady. These chapels were further separated from the chancel by parclose-screens. The contract states that the rood-lofts at Thriplow, south of Cambridge, and at Gazeley, between Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds, were the models used for this structure. It must[24] have been something like the great rood-lofts which still exist in Devonshire and parts of Norfolk. In the middle, below the rood-beam and facing the choir, was the University pulpit. But this screen, with its elaborate furniture, its “yomages,” candles and gilding did not have a long existence. It was destroyed by Archbishop Parker, that sworn enemy of rood-lofts, in 1562. However, during the Laudian revival, in 1640, another chancel-screen was erected, part of which remains across the chapel of St Andrew. Its fine composition and carving are characteristic of the Stewart era. Another and even better screen of a somewhat earlier date is to be seen in the church of Tilney All Saints, near Lynn. However, this screen perished in its turn, not at the hands of the zealot Dowsing, who destroyed as much as he could, but under the gentle influence of Georgian restorers. It appears that, after the Reformation, the University sermon became more of an institution than it had been, and was no longer preached to the chancel. Great St Mary’s was, however, put to other and more secular uses. Laud was informed that the body of the church was seated like a theatre; that the[25] pulpit was placed in the middle and called the Cock-pit; that at sermon-time the chancel was filled with boys and townsmen “and other whiles (thereafter as the Preacher is) with Townswomen also, all in a rude heap between the Doctors and the Altar”; that the “Service there (which is done by Trin. Coll.) is commonly posted over and cut short at the pleasure of him that is sent thither to read it.” Divers other informations were laid against the state of the church. It certainly seems curious to our own day that the Commencements should have been held in church, and that the feeble buffoonery of the “Prevaricator” should have been, under these circumstances, their leading feature. The feeling against these extraordinary ceremonies led to the building of the Senate House, which was large enough for disputations as well as meetings of the senate. But Sir James Burrough, to whom the Senate House is partly due, did his best to spoil the University Church. The screen of 1640, which, with its spirelets and canopies, must have been very like the Laudian screens remaining in one or two northern churches,[1] was taken down;[26] and the church was devoted entirely to the cult of the sermon. Mr William Worts had previously left a legacy to the University, which was employed in erecting the present galleries (1735). The Cock-pit was remodelled, and the centre of the church was filled with an immense octagonal pulpit on the “three-decker” principle, the crowning glory and apex of which was approached, like a church-tower, by an internal staircase. About 1740, Burrough filled the chancel-arch and chancel with a permanent gallery, which commanded a thorough view of this object. The gallery, known as the “Throne” was an extraordinary and unique erection. The royal family of Versailles never worshipped more comfortably than did the Vice-Chancellor and heads of houses, in their beautiful arm-chairs, and the doctors, sitting on the tiers of seats behind them. In this worship of the pulpit, the altar was quite disregarded, and Cole the antiquary remarked sorrowfully on this discreditable fact. Undergraduates, whose power of expression was not equal to their sense of humour, irreverently called the Throne Golgotha, because the heads of houses sat there. The church[27] thus became an oblong box, with the organ at one end, the Throne at the other, and the pulpit between them. The portentous array of bevelled and panelled oak plunged the church in darkness, and so, in 1766, the aisle windows were altered and the present meagre insertions made.

This domestic comfort pervaded the church until 1863. The Camden Society destroyed the picturesque top of the tower in 1842, but did not touch the interior of the church. In 1851 Sir Gilbert Scott took away Mildmay’s porch, and substituted for it the present west door. Much about the same time, the ground round St Mary’s was cleared of houses. Dr Luard, the late registrary, who was then Vicar, agitated for the removal of the “throne” for a long time, and at last the work of reconstruction began. The present nave-seats and chancel-stalls, in a somewhat florid style, were put in, and the only remains of the old preaching-house were the galleries and the organ at the west end. This organ, which dates from 1698, and is in part the work of Father Smith, was rebuilt by Messrs Hill in 1870. In 1888 the south porch was rebuilt on the lines of a porch which had been[28] destroyed in 1783. Under the present vicar, Dr Cunningham, the work of restoration has advanced. The tower has been thoroughly repaired, and a new organ has been built for parochial services on the south side of the choir. Further, the late Mr Sandars, who did so much for the University, filled in the lower part of the aisle windows with the arms of those noblemen and prelates who subscribed to the nave between 1478 and 1519. These windows, which are by Messrs Powell, are full of interesting matter for the student of monastic heraldry. Messrs Powell are similarly engaged in filling the clerestory windows with admirable figure-glass. Altogether, during the last half-century, the church has returned some way towards its original design. There is now a side altar in St Andrew’s Chapel, which is used as the chapel of the Clergy Training-School; the Lady Chapel is occupied by the vestry. And, finally, one must not forget the “Cambridge chimes” in the tower, which were composed in 1790 by Dr Jowett of garden fame, and are the model of all such chimes throughout England.