Mission Church of St Andrew

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History of the Mission Church, Burwell

The parish of Burwell originally had two churches, namely St Mary’s Church and St Andrew’s Church, the latter being demolished sometime before the mid-C19. In 1863, J W Cockshott, the vicar of St Mary’s between 1857 and 1885, raised £1,050 to erect a mission church on North Street, dedicated to St Andrew, seating 300. The following year he also started a National School for 80 labourers’ children in the new St Andrew’s church. The desks stood along the nave until 1871 when a separate school was built on an adjacent site on the north side of the church. Cambridge University helped to provide a salary of £120 for curates serving the church until about 1907. St Andrew’s is still labelled as a church on the Ordnance Survey map of 1974. At some point since then, a small extension was added to the east end of the north side; and it was used as offices from around the turn of the C21, which is presumably when the interior was gutted and the concrete floor laid. The church has been vacant since 2020 and the office fittings removed.

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