St Mary's Church, Conington

History of the building:

​The oldest part of the present church is the west tower, probably dating from the 14th century and built of stones collected from the village fields.  The church is entered from the west through the tower by way of a rusticated doorway dating from the time the nave was rebuilt in 1736-7. There is a gallery in the tower from which the bells are rung.  The nave displays what has been described as ‘the finest collection of funerary monuments in East Anglia’, including the only known marble monument signed by Grinling Gibbons (though there is similar work in All Saints’, Conington (Hunts). The east window has three lights, representing the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of our Lord. One of the windows on the north side is made up of scraps of glass from the east window of the old chancel and dating from the 14th century and later. Each light includes the words Vitrum antiquum hujus ecclesiæ, ‘ancient glass of this church’. Fragments of a 12th-century piscina are also extant.  There are four bells of which the 2nd is possibly the oldest in Cambridgeshire, dating perhaps to between 1350 and 1390.  The parish is administered by its Churchwardens and Parochial Church Council whose aim is to keep the parish church at the centre of village life – to the glory of God and the salvation of his people.