It is an Anglican Parish Church in the Diocese of Leicester and is designated by Historic England as a Grade II* listed building.

F.C Bedford, who wrote a guide to St Mary's in 1936, says, `It is generally agreed among historians that a Saxon church existed at one time in Hinckley'.

(This piece of history explains the name given to Mount Grace High School, Leicester Road, Hinckley, which is built on land once owned by the church).

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1542 he gave the former estates of Mount Grace Priory in Hinckley, together with the patronage (the right to appoint the vicar) of St Mary's to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey.

The oldest parts of the church you see today date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries – roughly 1240 to 1400.

[2] A large scale restoration took place between 1875 and 1878, at a cost of £10,000 (in today's money about £10,000,000, if you take into account an average working man's wage).

He wrote about his time in Hinckley in his autobiography, Incidents during Thirty Years Clerical Work in Ireland and England (published 1898).

The nervous system gave way under the strain of ten years' unceasing work in a manufacturing town in Leicestershire'.

Each transept had its own door so that the children could enter and leave without disturbing the rest of the congregation!

The north stone spitter (or spout to throw water away from the tower) was completely renewed, and the underside carved with a likeness of the Vicar.

At the south-east comer of the tower is a stone winding staircase which gives access to the battlements and a splendid view of the town, and far off Coventry.

The spire was erected in 1788, replacing an earlier one which had been badly damaged two years previously by storms and lightning.

(Re-gilded 1994) The walls of the nave are thirteenth century but the battlements with crocketted pinnacles at the comers are Victorian.

It has a circular bowl, on four small attached piers, with four marble shafts standing on a high base.

(Words of Jesus, see Mark, Chapter 10, verse 14) Perhaps the finest architectural feature of the church is this arch (early fourteenth century).

It is four-centred, the upper curves of which are very flat, without capitals, and with ribs at each angle running from floor to the point of the arch.

By the 1990s it was in much need of restoration and it was eventually dismantled and replaced with an organ from a redundant church in Leicester – St Paul's, Kirby Road.

Herbert became chairman of Sketchley Dye Works and lived in Forest View (now in the grounds of John Cleveland College) In the side chapel is probably the favourite window in St Mary's, depicting the Nativity.

It was created by Burlison and Grylls in 1919 and shows a very English looking Mary, with golden hair, and shepherds with well trimmed bears, one even resembling George V. Other windows include The Annunciation by Mayer & Co about 1890, also in the Side Chapel, and in the north aisle, near the entrance, is the Resurrection Window, in memory of Elizabeth and Margaret Yeomans (1925) which was made by Christopher Webb.

The bells are still rungs every Sunday for the main morning worship and practice sessions are held on Monday evening.

Three original tunes remain – Hymn by Handel, The National Anthem and Highland Laddie.

Other tunes include Aurelia by SS Wesley, St Francis Xavier by Handel.