St Mary & St John, Hinxton

St Mary and St John, Hinxton

History of St Mary and St John

Listed Building

Parish Church. Chancel, nave and west tower c.1200, mid C14 south chapel, and chancel arch rebuilt. South porch later C14 and west tower rebuilt except for east wall. C15 south aisle between porch and south chapel built by bequest of Sir Thomas Skelton (d.1416), east wall of chancel rebuilt possibly late C17. C19 restorations. Walls of flint rubble with Barnack limestone and clunch dressings.

By 1092 there was a church in the village, originally owned by Picot, sheriff of Cambridge, but then given to Barnwell Priory.

There is a brass of Thomas Skelton in the church; by the early 15th century Hinxton was one large manor owned by Thomas.

1529 during incumbency of William Dyckonson there was a quarrel in the village over a well-worn short cut through the Vicarage garden.

1797-1805 Rev James Plumptre – saw to the vaccination of his parishioners. He came fromma highly literary family and advocated acting as a moral educator.

1805-1833 Rev Townley Clarkson

1833-1862 Rev Graham – a young couple turned up at church wanting to be married without a licence or having given notice to the vicar.

1865-1892 Rev Charles Forster. There was an attempted robbery from Rev Forster’s home in 1880. Charles Forster was the uncle of novelist E M Forster. Charles’s brother William married Miss Emily Nash of Hinxton Grange in 1877. Money from the Forster family was used to set up the Emily Forster memorial Fund which was used to reestablish Hinxton as a separate parish with a resident vicar; it had been united with Ickleton in 1930. However, this arrangement was unmanageable in the  long term and in 1987 Rev Richard Birt was admitted to all three parishes of Hinxton, Ickleton and Duxford.

1890 marriage of Rev Forster’s daughter Mabel to Sir Lennox Napier, Bart. (reported in parish magazine)

1892-1926 Rev Twells. He caned boys who didn’t raise their cap to him. he gave 5s to children on the occasion of their baptisms.

1948-1955 Rev Peter Weir – he provided children with lemonade and crisps if they weeded the churchyard. His car was destroyed by fire in 1952. As he needed it to serve both Hinxton and Ickleton parishes, within two months the combined parishes had raised £300 to buy a replacement, a 1936 Morris 10.

1968-1977 Revd Dunkin.

1987 Rev Richard Birt