When one church is not enough...

Swaffham Prior, a village a few miles to the north-east of Cambridge, was once a port on the edge of the fens before they were drained in the C17th by Dutch drainage experts. As such it would have been very important to the local economy and a relatively affluent community.

Very unusually, it is dominated by twin churches that served two adjacent parishes from at least the 12th century – the Church of St Mary (on the left) and the Church of St Cyriac and St Julitta (on the right)
In 1667 an act of parliament combined the churches under a single parish; perhaps reflecting the fact that, with the fens drained, the village was in decline economically.

The Church of St Mary was first built in the Norman period, and over its history has at times been allowed to fall into ruin, only being fully restored at the start of the C20th and serving as the sole parish church since 1903. The original church of St Cyriac and St Julitta was built prior to 1200 and may possibly have existed before 1066. Having fallen into disuse, in 1878 it was decided to demolish it but the order was never carried out and it is now owned and preserved by the Churches Conversation Trust.

They are tricky to photograph because of their elevated position and the fact that there are a set of old cottages opposite which stop you from stepping back to avoid the churches not appearing to be upright. So I decided on presenting them as two seperate but clearly linked images to give a clearer impression of how they look!