Church of St Mary the Virgin, South Luffenham
Denomination	Church of England
History
Dedication	St Mary the Virgin
Administration
Diocese	Peterborough
Parish	South Luffenham, Rutland
Clergy
Rector	John Saunders[1]

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a church in South Luffenham, Rutland. It is a Grade II* listed building.^[2]

History

The church consists of a chancel and a nave, which both have clerestories, south porch, south chapel, north and south aisles, tower and spire.^[3][2][4]

The church was majorly rebuilt in the 14th century. In the 15th century the clerestory in the chancel was added.^[3][5]

The font dates to the 14th century. Also dating from the 14th century, is a table tomb in the chancel of a man in civil costume. The family arms of Culpepper is on the western panel. The chancel was restored in 1850.^[3][4]

G. E. Street restored the church in 1861, when the chancel floor was raised and the tower arch opened up.^[3][4]

The chapel contains a slab to the daughter of Edward Boswell, a ‘King of the Gypsies’, Rose Boswell.^[5] They set up a camp in the parish at Christmas 1793, and Rose became ill with tuberculosis. She died on 19 February 1794, aged 17, and is buried in the south aisle.^[3]

Clergy

• Robert Cawdrey, compiler of one of the first dictionaries of the English language, the Table Alphabeticall, became rector in 1571 but was deprived in 1587 for his puritan sympathies.
• Owen Gwyn, Master of St John's College, Cambridge from 1612 and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 1615–16, was instituted Rector 28 October 1611, remaining in office until his death in 1633.
• Robert Scott, (1811–1887) the co-editor with Henry George Liddell of a Greek-English Lexicon, the standard dictionary of Ancient Greek, was rector here for four years before he was elected Master of Balliol College, Oxford in 1854.^[6] Balliol held the advowson from 1855 and many of the priests appointed were fellows of the college and noted scholars.
• James Stephen Hodson, who was rector 1877–81, is commemorated here along with his brother William Stephen Raikes Hodson (1821–1858), a soldier prominent in the Indian Mutiny - "Hodson of Hodson's Horse".