Welcome to Ottery St Mary church
Ottery St Mary is a very welcoming church with a main service on a Sunday at 10.30am each week. The services are mainly Eucharistic with a good musical tradition and a strong preaching tradition. Numbers attending range from 60 -100 on a normal Sunday, but at major festivals can reach 450+. The church is a busy place with many midweek activities both in church and in people’s homes. There are plenty of things for children to do with a Toddler group, a Toddler service, 2 children’s choirs and a confirmation group. The church has a particular care of the lonely, vulnerable or housebound with in-church coffee mornings, fellowship groups, and home communions. The church maintains 2 Book of Common Prayer services a month – a service of holy Communion and a service of Choral Evensong where the choir is joined by other members of the Mission Community.
Location and information
Address
Church of St Mary the Virgin
1 Paternoster Row
Ottery St Mary
EX11 1DP
Nearest defibrillator
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Church Officers
Churchwardens (or if vacant the parish priest) can help you with general enquiries about the church, and if you are researching your family history. PCC Secretaries can help with information about the work of the Parochial Church Council and any correspondence should be directed to them. PCC treasurers deal with the finances of the church and are always pleased to discuss giving to the church or making a legacy in your will.
Val McIntosh
Churchwarden
Howard Clayton
Churchwarden
Sue Jeacock
PCC Secretary
John Maybery
PCC Treasurer
Contact an officer
Church accessibility
As a Mission Community we are very aware that our ancient buildings are not always the most accessible. Where possible we have made changes to make them more user-friendly but there are some limitations that we are not able to work round.
Open daily 9 AM - 5:30 PM
Limited parking
Toilets with changing facilities
Churchyard wheelchair friendly
Church wheelchair friendly
Hearing loop
Wheelchair available
Church features
All of our churches are unique many date back many hundreds of years. Each building tells a story and highlighted below are some of the features that are especially noteworthy.
Children's area
Kitchen
Astronomical clock
Coleridge monument
Fan vaulted ceiling
Grandisson eagle lectern
Historic tombs
Medieval misericords
Large ornate altar screen
Ornate ceiling bosses
History
There has been Christian worship in Ottery since Saxon times. The current church building was built from scratch in the astonishing time scale of 8 years, completed in 1345. It was commissioned by Bishop John de Grandisson as an imitation of Exeter Cathedral which accounts for each transept having its own tower. The specific purpose of the church was the service of a daily liturgy said by a college of 40 priests (canons), clerks and choristers and to support them in this work the church also had a cloister, chapter house, library and gatehouse to the south, as well as houses and a school for its community.
An extra aisle – known as The Dorset Aisle – was added in 1520 and has fantastic fan vaulting. A mere 25 years later at the Reformation the College was dissolved, the ancillary buildings were knocked down and the church became a parish church, stripped of much of its adornment. To replace the college of priests Henry VIII appointed 4 Governors, to which were added 8 more in 1552. The Governors were to be “of the most honest, best, discreetest and quietest of the Parishioners to be associated for their assistance” to deal mainly with financial matters.
The church was once more redesigned in the 19th C by William Butterfield. His alterations included lowering the floor level of the transepts, crossing and western part of the chancel to match that of the nave: the walls were scraped of plaster and cleaned. The ancient altar screen had been stripped of its statues and in 1934 sculptures were replaced.
For a more detailed history please visit the Historic England page.
