Ramsey, St Thomas a Becket Church

St Thomas a Becket Church, Ramsey

Ramsey's impressive parish church, dedicated to St Thomas a Becket, has its roots in the 12th century, when the monks of Ramsey Abbey built a hospitium, or guest house, for abbey visitors. The hospitium was converted to a parish church around 1222, a role it has fulfilled ever since.

History

Ramsey Abbey was established in AD 969, with St Oswald serving as its first abbot. In 1180 the abbey built a hospitium outside the gates to offer hospitality to visitors. The hospitium may have also offered medical care.

That 12th-century guest house was laid out with a nave of 8 bays, a chancel, a pair of aisles, and 2 chapels. Residents of Ramsey had no parish church of their own, so they worshipped in the abbey church, and later, in the chapel at Bury, a village to the south of Ramsey.

The 12th-century west doorway

The hospitium became a parish church in the early part of the 13th century and was rededicated in 1238 as the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury.

The south chapel was pulled down in the early 14th century and a clerestory was added in the 15th century. The last abbot of Ramsey Abbey gave money for a steeple in 1537. This was built of timber but it fell down a century later and was rebuilt as the tower we see today, using stone from the abbey ruins.

The tower stands over the 7th (partial) and 8th bays of the nave and the west door was relocated to the west face of the tower, becoming the main entrance.

The church was restored in 1843-4 and a vestry added on the site of the north chapel in 1910. In 1956 the eastern end of the south aisle was converted into a chapel to celebrate the safe return of Ailwyn Fellowes, 3rd Baron de Ramsey, who survived internment in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during WWII.

Fragment of 13th-century wall painting

Highlights

You don't have to go far to see perhaps the most impressive historical highlight of St Thomas's church; the impressive west doorway dates to the late 12th century and is composed of four orders, three moulded, with decoratively carved capitals. Over the doorway is a stone plaque carved with the words:

'TAKE HEED, WATCH
AND PRAY FOR YE
KNOW NOT WHEN
THE TIME IS
S. MAR. 13.33'

At the eastern end of the north arcade is a fragment of medieval wall painting dating to perhaps the 13th century.

The chancel features two piscinae dating to the 13th century. Memorials include an imposing Gothic monument to William Fellowes (d. 1837) opposite a small plaque to his wife, Emma Fellowes, (d. 1862). In the south aisle is a carved cartouche in honour of Edward Fellowes, who was responsible for the restoration of the church in 1843.

The Mawdesley memorial window

The wooden lectern is of 15th-century date but the pews are Victorian. The font is possibly original, dating to the late 12th or early 13th century. It was discovered beneath the aisle floor during the Victorian restoration of the church

Much of the richly-coloured stained glass dates to the early 20th century and is the work of the famous William Morris company. Several of the windows were installed in honour of local men who died in WWI.

Among these memorial windows is one to Coulson Fellowes, who died in 1915 of 'illness contracted in the trenches of France'. Another window was erected by Mary Mawdesley in honour of her father, Christopher (d. 1894), and her mother, Catherine (d. 1895).

In the churchyard you can see the headless remains of a 14th-century churchyard cross.

Visiting

St Thomas' Church stands almost opposite the medieval gatehouse of Ramsey Abbey on Church Green (the B1096). There is parking along Church Green and High Street, as well as nearby streets. The church was open when we visited.