"The church of ST. MARY has probably always been so named: the dedication is that of its patron Ramsey abbey and there is a much weathered sculpture of the Assumption over the west doorway, perhaps once painted. The church comprises chancel, aisled and clerestoried nave with south porch, and west tower with spire. The exterior walls are rendered but the quoins, buttresses, and tracery are of good quality freestone. The nave and aisles, particularly the exterior of the south side, are sumptuously decorated. The 12th-century nave had narrow aisles which have left traces at the west end, including a length of roof weathering and a fragment of a wall painting. The widening of the aisles was part of an extensive rebuilding of the early 14th century, probably completed shortly before an ordination was held in the church in 1338. The aisles and porch were built to a single structural and decorative plan, though the window tracery and ornamentation of the south side is richer than that of the north. A frieze of ballflower and vine tendrils was carried round the porch, which has pinnacled buttresses, while the south aisle has large gargoyles. Internally a contemporary stone wall seat, from which shafts rise between the windows, runs along the length of the north, south, and west walls of the nave, with a break for the tower arch.
The tower was added in the early 14th century, perhaps being started before the rebuilding of the aisles, since their plinth mouldings are discontinuous. Above rises a lofty broach spire with small solid buttresses at its corners. The chancel may have been rebuilt at the same time. Before the thorough reconstruction of the 19th century a number of 14th-century features survived, now represented only by the hoodmould of the east window, re-used for a wider opening when the chancel was remodelled in the 15th century. Externally the mullions of that window descend below the sill to form blank panelling. The other chancel windows and the west window and door of the tower were also inserted in the 15th century. The arms of Ramsey and probably Ely, now unrecognizable, flanked the sculpture of the Assumption on the west wall of the tower.
The main work of the 15th century was the reconstruction of the six-bay nave arcades and the addition of a clerestory, perhaps paid for by selling the parish's manor. The piers were well designed but carelessly built. The same masons worked on the blank arcade of the chancel side walls. The nave roof is also 15th-century. The medieval chancel roof remained finely painted in 1748, especially over the altar.
The east ends of both aisles retained parclose screens in 1776, later removed. The south aisle contains a piscina which predates the foundation of the chantry there in 1389. The 15th-century chancel screen has lost the panels from its lower part and much highly decorative tracery but retains a ribbed coving projecting over the eastern side. Six chancel stalls which formerly stood against the screen were moved in 1858. All have misericords, one of which bears a ram's head in reference to Ramsey abbey.
The north side of the church was said to be ready to fall before it was repaired in 1609. A brick buttress was built c. 1738 and there was heavy expenditure in the 1750s. More repairs had recently been finished in 1807. The spire was rebuilt in the early 1820s. Although a thorough restoration of the chancel was put in hand in 1840 it was badly done and uncompleted and the chancel's present appearance probably largely dates from J. H. Blunt's remodelling in 1857, which left little medieval work intact. The north aisle was repaired in 1847 and the tower and spire between 1858 and 1864.
At least two men left money in 1532 to make a new high altar. A faculty was granted in 1685 to adorn and beautify the church: the date is painted high on the west wall of the nave but it is not clear what work was done. An ornate 17thcentury pulpit and domed tester stands on a pedestal partly of an earlier period. Among other fittings is a chest with medieval ironwork. There were a pair of organs, a peal of five bells, and a sanctus in 1552. The uninscribed sanctus survives, housed in a small bellcot above the chancel arch. The tower bells were refounded as six in 1819, two more being added in 1931. The parish registers are complete from 1577 except for gaps 1587-97."
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