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Friends of St Mary's Church

Registered Charity Number 1086788

A brief history of the Friends of St Mary's

The Friends was set up three years ago to gather together all those interested people who cared about our lovely Church. This, it should be emphasized, is a secular organization and completely non-denominational, and we would welcome even atheists. We are concerned with promoting and helping to embellish the fabric and contents of St Mary's. A few years ago we had a very erudite ex-architect living in Beverley named Mr W B Smith. He was smitten by the fabric of St Mary's and spent his retirement cataloguing and describing the entire building as it is, how it was and how it was built and evolved. He did all this for his own pleasure and it was in rough manuscript form when he died.

It was taken up as a first project by the Friends, ably organized by our first secretary Michael Mayne, and published as a well designed authoritative soft cover book.This has sold well (£8) and we have recouped the costs already. This has enabled us to donate all the remaining copies to the Church free of all ties.

In the future we hope to raise money to finance specific items in the new refurbishment of the furniture at the west end of the Church. This will be costly, as always, and so a long term ongoing commitment.

We are justly proud of our Church, which features prominently in Simon Jenkins book of the finest English Churches.

We do have a problem in that Beverley also has the magnificent, and better known Minster. However, St Mary's can compete with the Minster, it's just as marvelous and significant in it's own right.