St Denis' Church, East Hatley is a

deconsecrated Deconsecration, also called secularization, is the act of removing a religious blessing from something that had been previously consecrated by a minister or priest of that religion. The practice is usually performed on churches or synagogues to b ...

church in

East Hatley East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, England. It is a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, Grade 2*, and the building and its churchyard (which is still consecrated) are a 200 square metre Local Nature Reserve. It is owned and managed by the Friends of Friendless Churches.

History

The church dates to the early thirteenth century and was restored by William Butterfield in 1874. It was last used for worship in 1959, and in 1985 it was

and transferred to South Cambridgeshire District Council. By 2003 its condition had severely deteriorated, and as it is a listed building the council agreed to pay for its restoration. On 30 November 2016 ownership was transferred to the Friends of Friendless Churches. The churchyard is mainly neutral grassland, but some is

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an adje ...

, and its grasses and flowers are diverse. Flowers include hoary plantain, rough hawkbit and

oxlip ''Primula elatior'', the oxlip (or true oxlip), is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae, native to nutrient-poor and calcium-rich damp woods and meadows throughout Europe, with northern borders in Denmark and southern parts of ...

. Access is via a footpath from the road called East Hatley in the village of East Hatley.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Denis Church East Hatley Local Nature Reserves in Cambridgeshire Churches preserved by the Friends of Friendless Churches Churchyards in England Scheduled monuments in Cambridgeshire