A standard and fairly easy small cache.
Fen Ditton is a village just outside the boundary of Cambridge City but has avoided being absorbed and retains a village feel. However, the parish also covers two of Cambridge's eastern housing estates. The church is adjacent to one of the three pubs, and the war memorial is on a small triangular green outside. It is grouped with two other neighbouring village churches, St Peter's Horningsea and All Saints' Teversham. The priest in charge is Revd Michael Bowers.
The parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Fen Ditton, first recorded in 1217, is built of rubble with Barnack stone with clunch and limestone dressings, and leadcovered roofs. The building, which consists of a chancel, a nave with a clerestory, north and south aisles, a south porch, and west tower, includes some 12th-century masonry. The tower was built in the early 13th century, and comprised three stages with a plain parapet and angle buttresses. The north aisle, and one of the windows in its north wall dates from c. 1300. The remaining three windows in the north aisle wall date from the later 14th century, each having two cinquefoiled lights. The chancel was built shortly afterwards. The east window has cinquefoiled lights with flowing tracery, and the three windows on the south side each have cinquefoiled lights. In the 15th century the chancel arch and the nave were rebuilt, and a clerestory, south aisle, south porch, and north vestry were also added. A screen divided off the nave from the chancel during the later Middle Ages.
In 1775 the chancel was restored, and given new stained glass windows and an altar rail brought from Ely cathedral. In 1807 the church was in good repair. Restoration in the mid 1840s was inadequate, and in 1853 cracks appeared in the new plaster, leading to further repairs in 1858. In the 1870s the church floor was lowered. A major programme of works in 1880-1 involved the rebuilding of the walls of the tower, north aisle, and chancel, and the restoration of the south aisle, porch, and clerestory. The work was completed in 1881. In 1955 coal-fired heating was installed, replaced in 1962 by an oil-fired system. In 1968 the roof was re-leaded, and in the late 1980s a major restoration of the church included the installation of a drainage system.
Historical information taken from the British History Online website; contemporary information from the church's website.
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