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St Mary's Church,
Icomb Village,
Icomb, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

We don't know when this Place of Worship was founded, but we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1923 describes St Mary's Church as "a building of stone, chiefly in the Early English style, and consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and western tower containing 8 tubular bells". The chancel retains a piscina, and attached to the nave is a south chapel, built in the 15th century as a burial place for the Blaket family, and retaining a piscina. Beneath the south window is a recumbent effigy of Sir John Blaket, kt. (d.1431) said to have fought at the battle of Agincourt, representative in Parliament for Leicestershire 1407-10 and 1413-14, and a resident at Icomb Place.

The earliest date of its architectural features provided by the British Listed Buildings website is 13th century - an arch to the south transept, and the two piscinas. One in the east wall is cinquefoil-headed; whilst one in the south wall has two trefoil-headed openings, one with a bowl the other functioning as the Credence shelf. The tower is dated as 16th century - its solid structure would (to me) suggest earlier.

Icomb Place, was according to Kelly, the old manor house, built about 1254, and remodelled c.1420 by Sir John Blaket's father. According to the British Listed Building website, it was partly demolished in the early to mid-20th century. Kelly mentions a room in the attic storey which had a ship painted on the wall; fortunately this has survived the demolition.

The Village does not appear to have had any Nonconformist Chapels. It was nevertheless a fascinating place, genealogically speaking, since it was formerly split into two parts, which were separately rated. The hamlet of Westward Icomb (671 acres) was in Gloucestershire, and the area known as Church Icomb (513 acres) was a detached part of Worcestershire. These were united in 1844, after which both hamlets were deemed to be in Gloucestershire.

There may be more information available by by selecting one or more of the accompanying images on the right.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference SP2139322628. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Mary's Church, Icomb shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Icomb shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Icomb, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Learn more about Buildings of special or historical interest on the British Listed Buildings (null) (verified 2018-09-19)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.