CHURCH.
Woodditton parish church stands
by the presumed site of Ditton Valence manor
house, (fn. 11) whose lords probably founded it.
Droard son of Cade gave it to Thetford priory
(Norf.) in the early 12th century. (fn. 12) Thetford created a vicarage, of which it held the advowson
until its dissolution in 1540. Presentations were
made by the Crown in 1342-3 and 1370, and
(under royal grant) by Mary (née de Brewes),
countess of Norfolk, in 1346 and 1350. (fn. 13) From
1540 the advowson descended with the rectory
manor and from 1742 with the Cheveley Park
estate. (fn. 14) The Crown presented in 1551, (fn. 15) Henry
Coke in 1661 evidently as guardian of the minor
heir, (fn. 16) and the Crown in 1834 by lapse. (fn. 17) John
Egerton, earl of Ellesmere, bought the patronage
from the Cheveley estate in 1920; his son John,
duke of Sutherland, retained it in 1987 when the
benefice was united with those of Ashley with
Silverley, Cheveley, and Kirtling. (fn. 18)
The vicar received £1 a year in 1254, (fn. 19) £6 13s.
4d. in 1291, (fn. 20) and £12 16s. 4½d. in 1535. (fn. 21) The
impropriators kept half the small tithes of
Ditton Camoys, and tithes on cattle, sheep, and
the mill were commuted by 1709. (fn. 22) Before
inclosure the glebe amounted to only 2 a. of
open-field arable. Tithes and glebe together produced £20 in 1706 and £46 in 1770. (fn. 23) The tithes
alone were worth £80 a year in 1792. (fn. 24) At inclosure in 1815 the vicar was allotted c. 200 a. forming an irregular T south of the church. (fn. 25) The net
annual income c. 1830 was £375, (fn. 26) but fell to
£250 in 1858. (fn. 27) The vicar sold 29 a. to the
Cheveley estate before 1883 and 164 a. in 1898,
retaining only 12 a. around the house. (fn. 28)
Until the 18th century the vicarage house
stood on the north side of the churchyard. (fn. 29) It
had been demolished by 1794. (fn. 30) In 1849 a large
red-brick house was built on 12 a. of glebe west
of Vicarage Lane. (fn. 31) It was sold in 1963, when a
smaller house was built on a corner of the plot.
That house was sold in 1985. (fn. 32)
Until the Reformation, Woodditton's vicars
seem rarely to have served more than a few
years. (fn. 33) Lights in the church were endowed with
2 a. by 1364, (fn. 34) and there was a guild by 1471. (fn. 35)
During the longer incumbencies from the 1550s
into the 18th century, vicars often employed
curates. (fn. 36) Robert Levitt, vicar 1618-58, though
ejected from Cheveley in 1644, kept Woodditton
despite his apparent unsuitability. (fn. 37)
In 1717 the vicar was presented to Newmarket
St. Mary (Suff.), holding both until his death in
1752, (fn. 38) with the result that the rights of the two
livings became confused. In 1752 they were consolidated as a single benefice (fn. 39) which was served
until 1847 by incumbents who normally lived in
Newmarket and held a single Sunday service in
Woodditton. (fn. 40) The low attendance in 1851,
fewer than 200 from a population of 1,300, (fn. 41)
was partly explained by long years of neglect
and partly by the dispersed settlement pattern.
The benefices were disconnected in 1847. (fn. 42)
Woodditton had its own incumbent until 1946, (fn. 43)
and a resident vicar who also served Stetchworth
from 1946 to 1974. (fn. 44) It was held in plurality
with Kirtling 1975-84 and additionally with
Cheveley and Ashley with Silverley 1984-7, and
the four benefices were united in 1987. (fn. 45)
The devotion to duty of the Victorian clergy (fn. 46)
probably had some effect in promoting attendance (fn. 47) despite the rival attraction of proliferating
dissenting chapels. (fn. 48) By 1873 the curate of
Cheveley was holding Sunday services at Saxon
Street. (fn. 49) A purpose-built chapel of ease, Holy
Trinity, was opened there in 1877 by Lady
Adeliza Manners in memory of her husband
Lord George Manners. (fn. 50) Also called the Lord
Manners Memorial Church, it was designed by
J. D. Sedding and comprises a chancel and nave,
in red brick with yellow brick banding, lit by
grouped lancets, and entered by a west door. (fn. 51)
Regular services were held by Woodditton
clergy until it closed c. 1986. (fn. 52)
About 1284 the lord of Ditton Camoys gave
away land belonging to a chapel, so that it could
no longer support a chaplain. (fn. 53) Its advowson was
conveyed with the manor in 1374. (fn. 54) No other
reference has been found but the existence of an
endowment suggests that it had not been simply
a private manorial chapel.
The parish church was dedicated to All Saints
from the 12th century to the early 19th, (fn. 55) its
modern name of ST. MARY being first
recorded in 1852. (fn. 56) It comprises a chancel with
modern north vestry and organ chamber, an
aisled and clerestoried nave with south porch,
and a west tower, built throughout of flint
rubble with ashlar dressings. (fn. 57) The church,
which in 1300 presumably consisted only of a
chancel and nave, was progressively enlarged by
the addition of a short north aisle in the early
14th century, its later extension to the full length
of the nave, and the addition of a south aisle c.
1400. Both aisles are narrow and of four bays.
The piers of the south aisle are of a design found
in Norfolk, reflecting Thetford priory's ownership of the rectory. The chancel was rebuilt in
the mid 14th century when the arch was widened, though the surviving wooden screen is
15th-century. The only 14th-century window
left is that at the east end of the north aisle; the
others were remodelled in the 15th century with
two or three lights. The chancel east window,
apparently of three lights in 1752, (fn. 58) was rebuilt
in the 19th century as a four-light window in
the Perpendicular style. Some medieval glass
survives in the chancel.
In the 15th century the nave roof was raised
to make a clerestory, and the west tower and
south porch were added. The tower is square in
section to above the height of the nave roof, then
octagonal, and looks intended for a spire which
was never added. The 15th-century roofs of the
aisles and porch survive, as do the inner door of
the porch and the 15th-century font. A bell of
c. 1480 (fn. 59) perhaps indicates the date when the
tower was completed.
The late medieval church had altars in both
aisles. Statue niches of the 14th century flank
the east window of the north aisle, while the
south aisle may have been the private chapel of
the lords of Ditton Valence: a brass for Henry
English (d. 1393) and his wife is set in the floor
under a medieval piscina and niche. (fn. 60) The high
altar stood between double niches of the late
14th or 15th century, one of which survives in
the original, the other as a modern copy.
Numerous fragments from an apparently large
alabaster reredos were discovered during the
1890s and have been reset in the north aisle. (fn. 61)
Several 15th-century benches with poppy heads
have been preserved. A matching bench end was
apparently taken to America by an emigrant
former churchwarden in the 17th century and
survives in a museum there. (fn. 62)
By the 18th century the centre of the church
was probably crowded with the private pews of
which the vicar complained in 1873. (fn. 63) Some of
the more prominent families are commemorated
by three mural tablets and one floor tablet, and
the impropriate rector Charles Nowes (d. probably 1710), 'a very whimsical sort of person',
had himself buried in a vault in the chancel in
a coffin set upright, so that 'a sort of raised altar
tomb' protruded above it. (fn. 64) Other wealthy parishioners were content with the churchyard,
where a group of stones carved with angels,
drapery, and emblems of mortality lies northeast of the church.
During the 19th century the church fell into
disrepair (fn. 65) until 1897-9, when Col. Harry
McCalmont of Cheveley Park met the cost of
reroofing the chancel and nave, repairing windows, clearing the interior of its post-medieval
accretions apart from the monuments, and
adding a vestry and organ chamber on the north
side of the chancel. (fn. 66) The iron and brass gates
under the tower arch, dated 1805 and supposedly brought from Jerusalem, were probably
also fitted then. (fn. 67)
The registers run from 1567. (fn. 68)