Our Project...

The Church of St Mary the Virgin,  Park Street, Devizes, dates from the Norman times and is one of the most important buildings in the town, with the church tower a particular landmark. The building is listed Grade I, putting it amongst the top 2.5% of listed buildings in the country.

UPDATE November 2020 

We are delighted to report that Planning Application 20/03841/FUL has been approved subject to a number of conditions about the detail of the materials to be used, other regulatory approvals that wil be required and the protection of the significance of the building.  This is the permission required for the external building that will provide, toilets, meeting room, offices and a small kitchen. What we are doing to meet these conditions can be downloaded here.

The next step is to present this information to the DAC for their Formal Advice to the Chancellor of the Diocese of Salisbury.

After long consultations between Chedburn Codd - the St Mary’s Church Architect - and Wiltshire Conservation, Historic England, Wiltshire Diocesan DAC and other consultees, we have arrived at a design for the new build that seems to be acceptable to all parties. For a PDF of plan view of the proposed external build  click on link.  As part of the regeneraton we will provide disabled access to all entry doors via the south entrance, as the west approach has too steep a gradient. The Grade 2 gates will be refurbished, subject to the relevant approvals and permissions, to ensure a welcoming appearance to the facility.

While the facilities that this new design provides are not as wide ranging as the original cloister concept, we do feel they would support the new uses envisaged for the church.
Together with the drawings, there are a large number of documents that support this application and they are available below. You can read them or downloaded them, but bear in mind some of the files are rather long and could be up to 5Mb in size.

This suite of documents has been uploaded to the on-line DAC Faculty Application website in preparation for the next DAC meeting as we ask them for” Formal Advice”. 

Tony Scorer 12 November 2020

The budgetary cost for the internal changes, external building and professional fees, excluding fittings and equipment, is of the order of £1.5M   

Planning Application Documents

 Documents supporting the planning and faculty applications are listed in this table. Also available are the letters received following a meeting at St Mary’s in October 2019.

Click on the link to download, please note these documents are in .pdf file format to ensure Norton does not question the website!

Download      Executive Summary – Chedburn Codd
Download       Business Plan descriptive document - StMFG
Download      Business Plan spreadsheet - the numbers - StMFG
Download       Conservation Management Plan - StMFG
Download       Historic Building Assessment - Matthew McMurray. A textual document
Download      Historic Building Assessment – Figures - Matthew McMurray, warning a very large file.
Download       Building Investigation – Demaus Building Diagnostics Ltd
Download       Ecological Assessment – St Mary’s Church July 1917 - Ecological Surveys Ltd.
Download      Archaeological Evaluation Report (Trial Pits) – Headland Archaeology Ltd
Download       Study St Mary’s Churchyard – burial activity - StMFG
Download       St Mary Devizes – Levels of Change - StMFG
Download       Statement of Need- StMFG
Download       Statement of Significance – StMFG
Download       Heritage, Design & Access Statement Chedburn Codd

Any suggestions or questions can be addressed to

Background information to the recent design update

Download       Comments on the letters received from the CBC, DAC HE re plans of Oct 2019.  The comments come first, then the letters with paragraph numbers.

Thanks to our Supporters

We wish to thank all the members of the public who continue to support us, and those wonderful event organisers who have choosen to use St. Mary for their shows and meetings. A special mention must go to The Invitation Theatre Company (TITCo) who had put on major shows for a number of years to sell out audiences, not least the recent " The Armed Man", 'Sister Act' and the classic 'War of the Worlds'.

TITCo have continued to use St Mary's for singing rehearsals and have posted a YouTube video, which can be downloaded here.  TiTCo recording. 

The aim is to take St Mary's from a closed building to a much visited asset to the town instead of merely an interesting background view.