Parish History and Community – Burghfield St Marys Church

The Setting of the church

St Mary the Virgin is a Grade II listed building tucked away at the end of a lane and barely visible from the village of Burghfield. An ordnance survey benchmark previously visible on the north transept shows it to be 164.24metres (539 feet) above sea level. It is surrounded by a large, tranquil churchyard (open) which is visited regularly by many from the local community.

The present building is on the site of an earlier building. The Churchyard was extended in 1943 and two areas have been put aside for car parking, one in 1967 within the confines of the 1943 extension, and another on adjacent leased land in 1993. The Parish Council have begun the provision of an adjacent parish burial ground to the North East of the current churchyard.

The original churchyard was surrounded by an iron fence dating from the 1890’s and now missing in parts and very dilapidated elsewhere. There a number of large Sequoia trees, a lych gate dating from 1893, and a Commonwealth War Graves Commission War Memorial, designed by Sir Richard Bloomfield and erected in 1928. The memorials in the churchyard exhibit a range of styles and standard of upkeep.