Medieval era The early history of the church is obscure, but excavations in 1962 to the south of the present churchyard revealed some burial
cists dated to before the
Norman Conquest. It was possibly the location of a private chapel for the
Bishops of London who owned land in the town. The first record of the church was in a lease of 1206 in which the bishop retained the
advowson, the right to appoint the
rector, a tradition which was maintained until the church closed in 1978. The same lease also includes a school in the parish, which has been taken as the origin of
Colchester Royal Grammar School. Dedicated to
Saint Mary the Virgin, the church acquired its
sobriquet "
ad murum" or "at-the-walls" to distinguish it from the church dedicated to Saint
Mary Magdalene in the western end of the town. shows St Mary's in the southwest corner of the town walls. The parish was poor, the wealthier districts of Colchester being closer to the port at The Hythe, so priests tended not to stay long. In 1440, a papal dispensation was received for the rector of St Mary's to hold the
benefice of a second parish, a custom which continued until the 19th century. The medieval church building had a
nave, a
chancel, a south porch and a northwest tower, which was rebuilt in 1534 using
rubble masonry containing
Roman bricks, finished with
limestone dressings,
Renaissance The rectors of St Mary's appear to have supported the
Protestant Reformation; records show that they sold off the church's
silver-gilt pyx and other accoutrements in 1534 and removed
stained glass windows in 1548. One rector was fined in 1544 for failing to read out the king's statutes and for living with a woman, while in 1554 during the
Marian persecutions, another married rector of St Mary's had to leave the town before the arrival of Bishop
Edmund Bonner's inquisitors. Another rector,
Hugh Allen, left Colchester in 1572 to join the English forces in Ireland during the
First Desmond Rebellion and was appointed
Bishop of Down and Connor. The Royalist defenders established an artillery battery in St Mary's churchyard to fire over the town wall, directed by observers on top of the church bell tower. Under the command of a one-eyed master gunner called Thompson, they hoisted a brass
saker (a small cannon firing a ball) into St Mary's tower, where it was mounted on a platform built over the bell-frames. From that position, the Royalist gunners could
enfilade the besiegers trenches, and even reach Fairfax's headquarters at
Lexden, more than down the road to London. To counter this threat, the Parliamentarians established a battery of heavier cannons and began to fire on St Mary's on 24 July, with the result that the Royalists began to withdraw their guns from the churchyard. On the following day, the Parliamentarians succeeded in partially demolishing the church tower, dislodging the saker and killing Thompson in the process. There is no evidence to support the modern suggestion that this event is the origin of the
nursery rhyme,
Humpty Dumpty. The building's role in the siege has been commemorated in the play
Bury Me In Colchester Mud, a contemporary piece written by local playwright Dr. Paul T. Davies, that follows a family hiding in church during the siege.
18th century In the aftermath of the siege, the church building was in a ruinous state and although it was initially still used for weddings and baptisms, the congregation held their regular services at the neighbouring church of
Holy Trinity until 1714 when St Mary's was rebuilt. The new building, consisting of a small chancel, a nave with aisles and a west gallery, At the same time, the ancient "low and inconvenient"
postern gate in the Roman wall which gave access to the churchyard was enlarged and stone steps were added. The tower was still a ruin in 1722 when
Daniel Defoe visited the town, but it was finally repaired in brick in 1729, although plans to surmount it with a
cupola and stone pineapples came to nothing, Morant became the rector in 1737, a post which he held until he died in 1770, although he latterly lived in his second parish at
Aldham. Another rector was
Thomas Twining from the famous
family of tea merchants, who was noted for translating works by
Aristotle; he was rector at St Mary's from 1788 until his death in 1804.
Redundancy The construction of a
ring road around Colchester in the 1970s resulted in Balkerne Hill being converted into a busy
dual carriageway, which separated St Mary's from much of its parish. A
chapel of ease for St Mary's had been opened in Ireton Road in 1904, which was a corrugated iron building or "
tin tabernacle", dedicated to
Saint Saviour. This building was replaced by a modern brick and slate church designed by
Bryan Thomas, which was dedicated to Christ Church and St Mary The only bell from the church, cast in 1679, was put in storage at the
Church of St Leonard at the Hythe and was finally installed at St Mary's Church,
Prittlewell in 2010 as a
Sanctus bell. The
pipe organ, originally built in 1881 by
A. Hunter & Son, was rebuilt and restored by Percy Daniel & Co of
Clevedon and installed at
Brentwood Cathedral. ==Arts Centre==