Church of St Mary, Ecclesfield

After the conquest and the repercussions of the Harrying of the North the lands around Ecclesfield passed to William de Lovetot at the start of the twelfth century.

The parish at the time was 82 square miles, one of the largest in England and because of this size, Ecclesfield had four churchwardens instead of the usual two and this tradition has been retained Construction of the present day church began in 1478 and was completed around 1500, being built in the perpendicular style.

Under Puritan influence in the 1640s many of the church's decorative pieces and all the stained glass was smashed after a 1643 Act of Parliament that stated "all representations of any angel or saint in any… parish church…was to be taken away, defaced and utterly demolished."

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw much re-ordering in the church especially to the nave and chancel under the respective vicars William Ryder and Alfred Gatty.

[7] The church houses a rare carved Anglo-Saxon cross shaft dating to the early 11th century AD.

[10] The grave of Joseph Hunter, a prominent antiquarian and archivist, and author of the important local history Hallamshire (1819), can be found in the churchyard.

Also buried in the churchyard are Alexander John Scott, chaplain to Horatio Nelson, who was present at his death at the Battle of Trafalgar[11] and his daughter Margaret Gatty, a writer and botanist.