St Mary's Church

St Mary's church, now the parish church of Barton-upon-Humber, has been the subject of a limited amount of architectural study, but no archaeological investigation. Its origins lay in a Norman market place chapel dedicated to All Saints, and when first mentioned in 1115 the chapel was evidently of recent foundation. The change of dedication occurred shortly before 1250. The chapel was a simple rectangular building which was greatly enlarged during the course of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries: aisles were added, the chancel was reconstructed, and a massive west tower was erected. There were further augmentations during the fourteenth century, and in the fifteenth the impressive clerestory – not dissimilar to St Peter's – was raised above the nave.

As a chapel-of-ease, St Mary's would not initially have had burial rights, and the church probably stood literally on the edge of the market place. However, interments were being made within the chapel in the thirteenth century and, at an unknown date – almost certainly before the end of the Middle Ages – a rectangular churchyard had been enclosed, and outdoor burial begun.

Although never parochial, St Mary's developed its own identity and attracted a discrete group of parishioners; tradition asserts that the chapel was built by the merchants of Barton. By degrees, the two churches came to serve the spiritual needs of geographically different sectors of the community, and they began to develop their own administrations. There were separate churchwardens by 1622, but only one vicar; curates were however recorded in the parish from time to time. So far as can be ascertained, St Mary's church alone attracted medieval chantry foundations, and a chantry priest's house was erected in the north-west corner of the churchyard. After the Reformation, it passed into private ownership and later became the parish workhouse, before being demolished in 1938. The two recorded chantries were founded by Richard Dinot in 1268, and John de Ouresby in 1397. The absence of chantries in St Peter's might be taken to imply that St Mary's had become the more prestigious of the two churches.

The date at which St Mary's gained this semi-independence is unrecorded, but the two churches were maintaining separate registers by the mid-sixteenth century. Complete sets of registers recording baptisms, marriages and burials survive for St Peter's from 1566, and for St Mary's from 1570. There are also partial records relating to several earlier years.