Hickling Local History Group

St. Mary's Parish Church, Hickling.

The village of Hickling is thought to have had its origins in the fifth century AD. A board inside the present church of St. Mary’s gives the visitor a brief guide to “1000 years of Hickling”

We are not sure when the first church was built here. However there was certainly a church on this site at the Norman Conquest. It is recorded in the Domesday Book, 1086, and was probably of considerable age at that time. In the 13th century the Augustinian Canons of Hickling Priory, (which had been founded in 1185), began building the present church, of stone and knapped flint. It served what by then seems to have been a village of some importance since it supported a weekly market, granted by King John to the Priory in 1204. The Church was originally dedicated to All Saints.

At the Dissolution of Hickling Priory, in 1536, the church took the dedication to St. Mary, which continues to this day. The extent and shape of the building is probably much as it was at the Dissolution, but at about that time the chancel was reduced in length - apparently due to the collapse of the east end - and the earlier dimensions are indicated by the height of the ground outside.

The church was heavily restored in 1875, and the immediate effect of the interior - plain, even austere - is as much the result of that as of the medieval builders. Before this restoration there was an oak screen, a gallery at the west end, box pews and a triple-decker pulpit.


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Records after the 30th of June 2011 can be viewed in the books at the church.


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