There has been a place of worship on the current site, just outside the original town walls, at least since the early 12th century. According to the earliest known records, the first church here, St Peter without Trumpington Gate, was controlled by three successive generations of the same family (Langline, Segar and Henry) from around the time of the Norman conquest until 1206, when it was given to the Hospital of St John the Evangelist, the forerunner of St John's College, and served by chaplains from that foundation.
Sometime in the 1280s Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, lodged some scholars in the hospital, but quickly discovering that the students and sick people did not get on well together, he moved the students in 1284 into two houses on the south side of St Peter's, allowing them the use of the church as their chapel. This was the origin of Peterhouse, the first Cambridge College.
By the 1340s the church was in such poor condition that Peterhouse was obliged to rebuild it. In 1352 the new building was rededicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It remained a dual-purpose structure, serving as both college chapel and parish church (a parallel situation to the similarly-proportioned chapel at Merton College, Oxford which for a long time was also the parish church of St John Baptist). To distinguish the new church from the University Church of Great St Mary's in the centre of Cambridge, it became known as St Mary the Less.
When a separate chapel was consecrated in Peterhouse in 1632 during the Mastership of Matthew Wren, uncle of Sir Christopher, LSM reverted to being simply a parish church, but the college remains the patron of the living. Peterhouse at this time was a centre of the High Church movement. Richard Crashaw, the metaphysical poet, ministered at LSM while he was a Fellow of Peterhouse from 1638. In 1643 he was ejected from his fellowship and fled into exile at Loreto in the Italian Marches, and at the end of that year the church's decoration and ornaments were badly damaged by the Puritan iconoclast William Dowsing who "brake downe 60 Superstitious Pictures, some Popes and Crucifyxes and God the Father sitting in a chayer and holding a Glasse in his hand." Dowsing then went on to the new chapel at Peterhouse where he wrought further destruction.
The church was refitted in 1741 with wooden panelling, box pews, choir gallery and central pulpit (now removed to its present position on the north side of the chancel). The image at the left of this page (from the Le Keux print of 1840) shows this Georgian interior. The 18th-century woodwork was removed when Sir George Gilbert Scott restored the church in 1857. Further restoration took place in 1876 and 1891, but by 1880 the church appeared substantially as it does now.
The Lady Chapel (dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre, St Mary and All Saints) occupies the site of the 16th-century Hornby chantry, and was added in 1931 to the design of Thomas Lyon, architect of Sidney Sussex College Chapel and of St George's, Chesterton. The lovely little chapel of the Holy Angels and All Souls in the 14th-century crypt under the sacristy, formerly a store room for Peterhouse, was restored in 1961 by Stephen Dykes-Bower. It is the only crypt chapel in Cambridge. The Parish Room at the west end was built in 1892 and enlarged in 1990 and again in 2011 to provide the present Parish Centre.
The church is pre-Conquest in origins, but only a reset fragment of interlace ornament survives from that period. Part of the W tower is C12. The church was almost rebuilt 1340-52 to serve as the chapel for Peterhouse college, and it was attached to the college by a gallery stair. There was apparently an intention to have a western transverse ante-chapel in the manner of Merton College, Oxford, but this was never built, and the westernmost bay adjoining the tower was completed or rebuilt in the C15. Other work in the C15 included new tracery in the side windows, at least on the N, and possibly the reroofing of the whole building, as a scar of a low-pitched roof is visible at the W end, although the roof was also redone in the C17. A chantry chapel was added on the N in 1443 for Thomas Lane, Master of Peterhouse; the S porch was added in the mid C15 by John Leedes, d.1455, bursar of Peterhouse; the vestry was rebuilt and partially converted to a chantry chapel for John Warkworth c.1487; and a chantry was added on the S side in the early C16 for Henry Horneby, another Master of Peterhouse. The church was refitted in 1741. The tower, standing in the mid C18 fell or was demolished before the mid C19. The church was restored in 1856-7 by Gilbert Scott, and again in 1876 and 1891. The 1876 work probably included rebuilding the roof in steeply pitched form. The parish room and lower part of a new tower were built in 1892, and the S chapel was built in 1931 to designs by T H Lyon. There were further repairs in the C20.
MATERIALS: Rubble, mostly ashlar faced inside and out, with some repairs in brick. Barnack stone dressings, Collyweston stone slate and lead roofs.
PLAN: Undivided nave and chancel with NW tower incorporated into western vestry; S porch, S chapel, two storey S vestry with an ossuary below it, and gallery stairs to adjacent Peterhouse College. Attached parish room to W.
EXTERIOR: The building is undivided externally. Its height is emphasised by the large, tall windows, steeply pitched roof and offset buttresses reaching the full height of the walls. It is largely mid C14 in appearance, but this is partly the result of C19 restoration that altered the late medieval or post-medieval roof pitch and the C15 tracery on the N side. The very large E window is C14 and has six lights with excellent flowing tracery. It is surrounded by three C15 statue niches, those on the sides with vaulted canopies, that below with a projecting pedestal on an attached shaft. The E end was refaced in 1963.
There are four C14 windows in the N wall all of four cinquefoiled lights, restored in the C19, which almost fill the bays between the buttresses. A similar window in the fourth bay is blocked. The westernmost window in the N is C15, but with the tracery restored in a C14 style.
The windows in the S wall are similar to those on the N, but more irregular in their arrangement. The E end of the S side is largely hidden behind the S chapel, the stair to Peterhouse and the SE vestry. The westernmost window on the S is C15, and the W wall has a three light C15 window with vertical tracery. The S vestry is C14 in origin, but was rebuilt in the late C15 and has two C15 E windows and one in the S wall. There are two small openings in the E wall to let light into the ossuary below the vestry, an unusual fixture relating to medieval burial practice. A fragment of Anglo-Saxon interlace ornament is built into the S wall of the parish room. The scars of the older tower and the former, lower pitched roof are visible in the W gable of the nave.
INTERIOR: The interior is lofty and light, with very large windows. There is no internal division, although there was formerly a screen between the 3rd and 4th bays. The windows have shafted splays and moulded rerearches, the C15 windows at the W end with taller bases on the shafts than the C14 windows. The E window is flanked by ogee headed niches, largely rebuilt but incorporating some earlier fragments. The first window on the S has blind tracery that is carried down to form a 4-bay piscina and sedilia. There is a blocked door and C15 tomb recess in the N wall for Lane chapel, and the former Horneby chapel, now the ante-chamber to the S chapel, has an early C16 door and contemporary arch for a tomb recess with an elaborate ogee frame. The S chapel has a barrel vaulted roof and a statue niche opposite the door. The ossuary below the vestry has a C14 brick vault with clunch ribs and a central, octagonal pier. The C12 tower arch is of two, plain round-headed orders and has quirked and chamfered imposts. There is a square headed door above the tower arch. To the NE is a half arch that awkwardly joins the tower to the C15 N wall.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The four-bay piscina and sedilia composition formed by carrying down the mullions of the 1st window on the S side is C14. The individual bays have miniature vaults. There is a simpler C14 piscina in the S vestry. The C14 font is octagonal, and has shields painted in the C17 with various arms. The stem has blind tracery panels and shafts at each angle. The richly carved cover is dated 1632. There are Hanoverian Royal arms, probably part of the 1741 refitting. The stem of the pulpit of 1741 is the sole survivor of a complete C18 refurnishing of the church. The hexagonal pulpit, with a matching hexagonal sounding board, and enriched panels in each face, one with an IHS monogram, was rebuilt in 1900. C19 nave benches with square ends with blind tracery panels. The high altar, with riddel posts is 1913 by Ninian Comper. What is apparently the former C19 reredos with rich carving, including figures of saints, is hung on the W wall of the church. There is some good C19 glass, including the W window of 1886 by Kempe.
Monuments include a C13 or C14 coffin lid, with indents for a later brass, and some good C18 and C19 wall tablets, including one for Godfrey Washington, vicar, d. 1729, a relative of President George Washington. There are also two brasses, one for John Holbrook, d.1436, Master of Peterhouse, the other of c.1500, also for an academic.
Two small fragments of Anglo-Saxon interlace carving are reset on the outside of the parish room.
HISTORY: The church originates from before the Conquest, and was apparently founded and served by a small clerical dynasty, passing from father to son. It was originally dedicated to St Peter and was called St Peter outside Trumpington Gates to distinguish it from the other St Peter's by the castle. Perhaps in response to growing pressure on parish clergy to be celibate, the last in this dynasty, Henry, gave it to the Hospital of John the Evangelist c.1197-1207. Its revenues were appropriated to the hospital, but it remained a parish church. In 1286 it was transferred to the new foundation of Peterhouse and was used as the college chapel until 1632, although it retained parochial functions also. By 1340 the church was said to be 'old and ruinous' and the scholars were not using it. By 1352, however, the new church was sufficiently complete to be consecrated, when it was rededicated to St Mary, distinguished from the other St Mary's as St Mary the Less. Peterhouse was founded by a bishop of Ely, and architecturally, St Mary the Less appears to have been influenced by the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral, and the chapel of St Etheldreda's at the bishop of Ely's London residence. The church always retained its parochial functions, and in 1632, when a chapel was built within Peterhouse, it reverted to purely parochial use. It was refitted in the Georgian style with panelling, box pews, a choir gallery and a central pulpit in 1741, but all of this except the pulpit was removed when the church was restored in a Gothic style in 1856-7 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, one of the most important church restorers of the mid C19. Other changes, such as removing the Jacobean roof and giving it a stepper pitch were also intended to give the building a more Gothic appearance. The architect of the S chapel, Thomas Lyon, was also the architect of the chapel of Sidney Sussex College.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The Church of St Mary the Less, Cambridge is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
- Interesting church of c.1340-52, built to serve as the chapel for Peterhouse with a fine E window and a gallery linking it to the college.
- Unusual C14 ossuary.
- Noteworthy C14 font with a C17 cover.
- Restored in the C19 by Sir George Gilbert Scott.