Church of St. Mary, Ecclesfield

The Church of St Mary stands on Church Street in the village of Ecclesfield, six and a half kilometres north of Sheffield city centre. It is one of only five Grade I listed buildings within the Sheffield boundary and was once the parish church for Hallamshire, one of England’s largest parishes. In the seventeenth century it was called the Minster of the Moors because the surrounding land was still open countryside. The name Ecclesfield probably means ‘church in the field’ in Old English and appears in the Domesday Book. Historians believe Anglo-Saxons may have worshipped here as early as the seventh century. The church’s long history includes a twelfth-century building by William de Lovetot, later handed to French monks and then to Carthusian monks of Coventry. Construction of the present perpendicular-style church began in 1478 and finished around 1500, though parts of the nave and tower come from the earlier building. In the 1640s Puritan reforms destroyed much of its medieval decoration. The nave and chancel were reorganised in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by vicars William Ryder and Alfred Gatty. A football club connected with the church joined the Sheffield Football Association in 1878. Inside, local stone walls enclose an octagonal font and a 1876 pulpit carved with scenes from St Paul’s life. The lectern was installed at the same time and a pipe organ provides music. The tower holds ten bells, two from the seventeenth century. The churchyard contains a Grade II listed war memorial designed by R. B. Brook-Greaves, listing fifty-four names from the First World War, thirty-six from the Second and one from the Falklands War. A rare Anglo-Saxon cross shaft, five feet high, stands inside the church, found buried near the west door in 1892. Nearby is a sundial with what may be an ancient base. Graves of antiquarian Joseph Hunter, Nelson’s chaplain Alexander John Scott and botanist Margaret Gatty lie in the churchyard.