About Us

The Church

St Mary’s, Adwell was built in 1865, replacing a much earlier Norman church. The church was designed by the well known Victorian architect, Sir Arthur Blomfield who was the architect of the Royal School of Music. Recently we had musicians from the RSM visiting the church, and they said that the acoustics could not be bettered!

Blomfield re-used in the south wall the Norman arched doorway with an arch with roll and hollow mouldings on jamb shafts with bell capitals. The church has an extravagant bell turret corbelled out from the west wall and decorated with gables, gargoyles, and a short spire.

Inside, there is an interesting effigy of a knight holding a heart, clearly left over from the medieval church and in memory of a crusader’s heart burial.

The pews were also designed by Blomfield, an unusual and interesting feature of the church. 

Services

We have approximately 18 “standard” Book of Common Prayer communion services at Adwell each year, using the King James Bible for readings. The services are held at 9:00 and do not take more than 1 hour.

Each year we have a number of additional services celebrating national or local events, and we also have a service celebrating the countryside when poetry and passages celebrating the countryside are read. We involve people from our neighbouring parishes to read and invite local people who do not normally come to church to join us.