St Denis East Hatley
I support a couple of charities who look after redundant churches - after all I spend a lot of time in the buildings they care for taking photographs. One of these is the Friends of Friendless Churches, who do wonderful work rescuing and restoring buildings which might otherwise crumble into the ground. One such church is St Denis’ at East Hatley in Cambridgeshire. It was abandoned in 1961, left to decay for over 40 years, and it wasn’t until 2005 that the first restoration work to save the building was carried out. Over the last decade the Friends of Friendless Churches have taken ownership, building on this initial work and returning St Denis’ to a state where it could be opened to visitors once more.
I visited on a gloriously sunny summer’s day and had the place to myself, aside from the cave spiders which live beneath the floorboards and no doubt a few bats roosting in the rafters. The interior now looks wonderful, but it’s still awaiting the addition of one more item - a new stained glass window at the eastern end of the church. Hopefully this new window, designed by Aidan McRae Thomson, will be made and installed over the next couple of years, which will give me an excellent excuse to make a return visit.
Photos taken 31 August 2025