St Mary's Church, Ewell

St Mary's Church, Ewell
The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Ewell, seen from the West.
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	High Church
Website	www.stmarysewell.com
History
Dedication	Saint Mary the Virgin
Administration
Parish	Ewell, St Mary
Deanery	Epsom
Archdeaconry	Dorking
Diocese	Guildford
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Vicar(s)	The Reverend Russell Dewhurst, MPhys (Oxon), BTh (Cantab), LLM (Cardiff)
Assistant	The Reverend Sue Ayling, OBE, Assistant Priest; the Reverend Patrick Miller, MA, PhD (Cantab), Hon Assistant Priest
Laity
Organist/Director of music	Jonathan Holmes, MA (Oxon), B.Mus, FRCO, ARCM

The Anglican Church of St Mary the Virgin, Ewell is the civic church of the borough of Epsom and Ewell in the county of Surrey in South East England.

There has been a church dedicated to Saint Mary the Virgin in Ewell since the 13th Century, a board above the south door in the current building recording incumbents from 1239 to the present day. There were two reasons for the demolition of the old church (except for the 15th Century belltower, which still stands in the churchyard today): one was that the building was in such a parlous state of structural repair that it would come down whether demolished under control or allowed to collapse; another was that the incumbent at the time, Sir George Lewen Glyn (known to have been both Rector and Lord of the Manor simultaneously), resented his parishioners' carts all passing his rectory/manor house on their way to Sunday services, so had a new church built at the junction (one of two) of Church Road and London Road (both of which are arc-shaped) further away from the rectory.

Dedicated in 1848, the current building stands in a prominent position near the centre of the village of Ewell, on the old London Road. Designed by Henry Clutton, it was built in a simple, modest form of the Decorated Gothic style (apart from an ostentatious vaulted west porch, erected c. 1905) and faced with Swanage stone (not to be confused with Purbeck Marble) with Bath stone mullions and tracery. The North Aisle was enlarged in the late 19th Century. The real glories, however, are inside. There is a fine marble pulpit, as well as the medieval font and chancel screen (which was extended somewhat to fit the larger chancel arch of the new church) from the old building.